JP Sears: Get Ultra Spiritual, Resist the Government, and Promote Coronavirus Conspiracies
JP Sears is quite the contradictory figure. He's well known for his YouTube videos mocking alternative health and spirituality, but he also sells natural supplements, and is a life coach / spiritual mentor. He's all about positive thinking and natural supplements, but he's spending most of his time now railing against the mainstream media, the Deep State, and COVID restrictions.
As Chris and Matt dig deeper, it becomes clear that JP occupies an interesting place, at the nexus of trenchant libertarianism and spiritual self-actualisation. Think Californian surfer dude meets hardcore tech-bro with a healthy dose of conspiracies. Yes, it's confusing. But just take a listen to this episode, and the doors of perception will open for you too!
Welcome to Decoding the Gurus, the podcast where two academics listen to content from the greatest minds the online world has to offer and we try to understand what they are talking about.
So I'm Professor Matt Brown, I'm a psychologist from Australia and with me is Dr. Chris Kavanagh, a cognitive anthropologist currently resident in Japan.
So we are fully credentialed gatekeepers of the institutional narrative and we are ready to get to the bottom of the guru of this current week.
So before we get started, Chris, I just have to tell you I've been warned by a colleague of mine who has listened to our podcast and he's warned me about calling myself a psychologist.
Apparently it's a protected term.
So these clinical psychologists...
Who have had like four years training and a couple of years counselling or something, are real psychologists.
And someone like me, with a decade of education, decades of research experience, I'm not allowed to call myself a psychologist.
Can you believe the injustice of that, mate?
I can't, Matt.
I mean, what are you going to do?
What has become of academia?
I know.
This is shocking.
It's a shocking state of affairs.
Well, you know, I'm going to stand my ground on this.
So if they want to come after me, they can sue me.
I'm not going to stop calling myself a psychologist because I am.
Yeah, the much more concerning thing, of course, is that would apply to me as well.
And because I also am technically...
I'm an associate professor in a psychology department.
So, yeah, this won't stand, Matt.
They really wouldn't like you.
They really wouldn't like you calling yourself a psychologist, that's for sure.
You don't even like that, Matt.
You don't even like that.
I mean, let's be fair.
Are there any anthropologists in gainful employment or are there only academics?
I'm going to punt.
On that question, I won't hear my fellow anthropologists be smudged in this way.
They're everywhere, Matt.
There's anthropologists serving you lattes.
There's anthropologists driving your buses.
We are the undocumented majority.
I think I'm doing a terrible job of sort of pulling together a coalition of academics to defend my rights as a psychologist, aren't I?
Yes, you are.
You've alienated the anthropologist.
That really, that's going to cost you big time.
All right, all right.
So let's get into it.
Okay, so we've got a few things to cover before we get into our Guru of the Week.
First of all, we have a correction to issue, Chris.
Correct.
Yes, correct, Matt.
I didn't plan that.
So we, in the Jordan Peterson episode last time, talked about him being addicted to painkillers and several people pointed out he was not addicted to painkillers.
He was addicted to benzodiazepines, which are anti-anxiety medications.
So we were wrong there.
Hello.
I think not so wrong as it actually influences the broader point that his worldview is bleak.
So maybe we should have specified more clearly it's about himself medicating anxiety versus reducing pain.
Yes, so I guess that's a good point.
That's a good point.
Well, look, in my defense, my research is casual and haphazard.
That's all I can say.
Well, I think this illustrates Matt.
Why you cannot call yourself a psychologist, because a clinical psychologist would never make such a screwboy error.
So, just another mark in the column for, is Matt a psychologist?
You decide.
You decide.
Yeah, good.
Fair enough.
Okay, so the other thing we want to say is, I think we've said this before, but...
Everyone that we cover in the podcast is obviously welcome to come on our podcast and talk to us, debate us, fight us, call Chris an idiot, whatever.
Am I right, Chris?
Mortal Kombat style.
And yes, Matt, we did talk about this, but then we never actually used that segment.
So the other people are unaware that we've discussed this.
This is our debate policy, right, with the people that we cover.
Yes, yes.
Open to it.
It would be fine.
It's probably unlikely that they will take us up on that offer, but that's fine too.
Yeah, either or.
Yeah, we are too minor, I think, for people to be concerned.
And then that's one reason.
And the second is most of the people we cover don't have a history of being particularly fond of engaging with people who are critical of them.
So, yeah, it would be nice to have a discussion.
Or a debate or an interview.
But I wouldn't hold your breath, anybody that's hoping for that.
But we are open to it.
So blame them.
Yeah, blame them.
That's right.
If they're not coming on our podcast, it's their fault.
So the fun thing to do, and first of all, we want to ask everyone to, because apparently if you have a podcast, you have to do this.
You have to beg.
Cajole, threaten people with terrible consequences unless they get onto iTunes and leave reviews and some stars.
So please, please, please, please, please leave us a review because then we'll become rich and famous, I think.
Yes.
That's how it works.
And to encourage people to do so, I thought I would read out two of the reviews that we've received so far.
One that's positive and one that's slightly less positive, just to get a range of positions.
So which one should we listen to first?
Well, let's set things up with a nice, friendly one.
So this is from Swiss Miss Plus that says, so far, so good.
So, you know, she's keeping things...
Keeping our expectations low.
Charitable and illuminating criticisms.
Looking forward to more.
That's it.
That's nice.
That's a good review.
That's how simple it is.
That's how simple it is.
It's that easy, everyone.
That's all you need to do.
You don't have to write an essay, show something like that.
Look, I'm satisfied with that, Chris.
That's a good review.
I wouldn't...
Well, no.
For balance, because, you know, both-siderism, that's what we do.
Let me give the review of the user name47474739293.
One star, oh dear.
Oh, yeah.
Pathetic, to be honest.
That's the title.
These two clowns are punching way above their weight classes.
This pod is presented as some sort of intelligent breakdown of the opinions of men, much more accomplished and knowledgeable than they.
Which makes zero sense.
That's the first half.
And I would just mention here that the podcast has so far been about men, but it is not a men-only space.
He said, you know, we're focused on the opinions of men more accomplished than us, but we are happy to...
We're also interested in women who are more accomplished than us.
That's true.
Yeah, both, both.
Yeah, so this is not part of the manosphere.
If you've come here by mistake, I just thought we should flag that.
That's right.
There'll be no tips on how to pick up chicks.
That's not what we do.
Yeah, because obviously, from that line, you're very accomplished at that.
Okay, so let me finish.
I don't want to misrepresent.
These two have conveniently placed themselves hilariously in some kind of superior position above it all, bestowing the true knowledge in of other people's work according to them.
It's pathetic and sort of sad, to be honest.
Don't quit your day jobs, mates.
That's good advice.
We shouldn't quit our day jobs, Chris.
No, and I also like the friendly sign-off, you know, just mates, you know, friendly advice.
Yeah, I mean, all opinions welcome.
So look at that.
If you leave a...
A positive review or a negative review, you can get mentioned.
So, yeah, please do.
Or don't.
Either way, maybe that's why we don't have reviews.
Yeah, I really do like these negative reviews.
They're a lot of fun.
But I'm worried by reading them out, we could be encouraging people to leave negative reviews.
Leave a funny review.
Leave an ironic review.
You can give us five stars and then leave a super negative review.
That'll work well.
Yeah, yeah, that'll confuse people.
That'll just mix it up.
Yeah, be innovative.
Yeah, and if my family are listening, what are you guys doing?
You know, I don't see any review from friends or family.
Yeah, mom, mom, mom, WTF, come on.
Yeah, okay.
All right, so there we go.
That's our begging segment done.
Okay, so for the next segment, I think we should kick off a bit of a where are they now part where we just check in and look at the people that we've covered and just see if any interesting stuff has gone down in the last couple
of weeks.
Yeah, it might get more unmanageable as the time progresses, but we can be selective about who we discuss.
And actually, there has been two or three significant events in the past few days, past couple of weeks.
Maybe I'll start off by mentioning that Jordan Peterson released a video of him announcing that he was back, hoping to start making content again.
It was a short video.
He didn't seem to be firing on all cylinders, which is understandable, given what he's been through.
At least people took it very positively, his fans did, and seemed to signal that he's hoping to come back, maybe hopefully after the election, might be my comment there.
But yeah, so Jordan Peterson is possibly back.
Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see where he takes things.
Like I think of all the people we've looked at and all the people we're considering looking at.
I think JVP is probably the one who is most likely to surprise us.
You know, like he might keep doing the same kind of thing or he might go in some surprising new direction.
Yeah, what do you think?
In the video, he mentioned kind of following up on one of his Bible series courses.
He wants to do another book from the Bible.
So, yeah, I mean, good luck to him.
I kind of hope for his sake and for the sake of the discourse that he stays away from the culture wars.
As should we all, Chris.
As should we all.
So say we all.
And the second event is that James Lindsay from our second episode has come out and endorsed Trump.
As the person that he will be voting for in this election.
Because of the embracing of critical theory and some other stuff from the far left.
They've gone too far and now he needs to support Trump.
So our assumption that he had a monomania focus on critical theory has been, it's blown out of the water, completely invalidated by this surprising outcome.
What do you think, Mark?
Yeah, so looking back to when the so-called square thing started, I, to be honest, welcomed it at the beginning because I thought it would be good for there to be a bit of a discussion within academic circles of epistemology,
research methodology, just to have a serious chat about what...
What research in the social sciences society and people generally, what it should look like, that kind of thing.
And early on, it very quickly took a political turn.
I don't think that was entirely on, you know, you can't lay that entirely at the feet of the circle squared people, but it just, from all sides, it very quickly became almost entirely political kind of debate with lefty people lining up and hating it.
And the people who were cheering it on were not academics concerned about things like epistemology or research methods, but rather right-wing people who don't like people, you know, making a big deal about racism and things like that.
So this seems like, unfortunately, the endgame of a very long trend where the chips have fallen where they have and James has transitioned.
Fully over to what his critics were, I thought, unfairly maligning them as, which is kind of right-wing provocateurs or right-wing activists.
Apologists.
Apologists, whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, so for me, for my part, it's a sad development, but, you know, I have to hand it to you.
We're calling it...
Well, calling for this outcome for...
Well, what were you doing?
You were saying this is what was going to happen.
Yeah, I think I thought that James was on the Dave Rubin trajectory at least over the past 12 to 18 months.
That seemed to be where he's heading.
We mentioned that on the last episode or on the James Lindsay episode.
I think even for me, I had not expected the descent into Magaland to be this swift.
I thought it would be more, you know, a gradual thing as he becomes more involved with sovereign nations and appears more right-wing content and that it would gradually happen.
But ever since the Trump retweet of one of his tweets...
It seems like he just put his foot on the gas and accelerated right down.
I mean, it was only a week or so ago he was telling Dave Rubin off because he said he was going to vote for himself, right in himself, rather than Trump.
And yeah, so it does seem like a kind of predictable but very depressing outcome.
Yeah, I think the other thing at play is that phenomenon of audience capture, which...
I guess we saw in terms of the Sovereign Nations talk, which was that the groups or organisations or people that are most attracted to that kind of message engage and then draws people like James further.
into that sphere who then tailors their message more and more for that group.
And at least subjectively, it feels to me like the kind of people you might find in the mentions of a James Lindsay tweet, the vast majority of people
Yeah, poor Helen.
But, well, let's see.
It'll be interesting to see how she responds.
My expectation is she'll just say it's nothing to do with her point of view and she won't comment on James' actions, which, okay.
But, yeah.
But I will say one funny thing that came out of it is that Eric Weinstein retweeted James' Announcement that he would be voting for Trump, and he coined a new term.
So he said, Incons are a force this year.
Involuntary conservatives are real.
As I've told you, the failure to condemn Mayor Jenny and Ted Wheeler, acknowledge Antifa, admit to media bias, or to level about cognitive issues in a near octogenarian has created the never-Trump Trump voter.
So, yeah, that's a standard Eric, you know, verbiage.
But I just, I love that he's come up with this incons, involuntary conservatives, obviously aping incels, involuntary celibates.
Yeah.
Who was it who originally came up with the acronym for the intellectual dark web?
Him.
It's Eric.
Yeah.
I knew it was Eric.
I knew it was Eric because he's got this turn of phrase for coming up with like really bad.
Neologisms?
Like, they're just always bad.
So, like, that association with incel and incon, it's just...
I mean, he has created a term that will now be used endlessly against, you know, the IADW classical liberal types.
Incon is now going to be something that nobody ever forgets, I think.
It reminds me...
Well, people have forgot this, but, like, when Brett Weinstein...
Wanted the coronavirus to be renamed the Wuhan Enigma Syndrome.
Oh God, yeah.
Yeah, and most people have forgot that, including Brett.
He's dropped it.
But I will never forget that.
It will never go.
And I will never forget involuntary conservatives.
Yeah.
Well, look, I mean, I have some sympathy for the idea because I think James Lindsay has turned me into an involuntary woke person.
Yeah, yeah.
Because...
In woke, it doesn't have the same ring.
It doesn't have the same ring.
But to be honest, the original isn't very good either.
So if we're going to admit...
But, you know, over that 2 plus 2 equals 5 controversy, which James really instigated and made into a big thing and then acted like a complete jerk the entire time.
Now, my initial sympathies might be for the...
Proposition that 2 plus 2 equals 4. But to be honest, he acted like such a jerk in that entire thing that I'm totally on the side of the 2 plus 2 equals 5 people just because they're not acting quite so bad.
Yeah, yeah.
It is a thing.
In-woke-ism is real.
It's real, Matt.
It's real.
You heard it here.
Like we're being pushed to the far left by just the annoyance of IDW or contrarian lefty
I sometimes worry about the degree to which my opinions and probably everyone's opinions about things are just guided by who's being the most obnoxious at the moment.
It's not a terrible guide.
It's not a terrible guide, I think.
You could do worse.
Yeah, that's true.
You could judge everything through whether the person has condemned.
Critical race theory.
That would be a worse standard to apply.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
That's a low bar.
That's a low bar.
But anyway, put that aside and we will go on to our content for the week.
So Chris, would you like to tell our adoring listeners, except for that guy, if you're still listening, the one who left that review.
AM47472349.
You're not welcome here.
No, he's welcome.
So what are we doing?
Who are we talking about today?
Yeah, so we thought we would have a look at a little bit of a character outside the culture war, or I should say someone that we initially thought was outside of the culture war sphere, called J.P. Sears,
who is quite popular, has a large following on YouTube, I think over a million subscribers, but is probably not that well known to our audience.
If you do know him, you likely know him from his ultra-spiritual parody videos, which were popular a couple of years back, where he made these short five-minute or two-minute videos parodying the New Age spiritual community and various claims they made.
So he was popular amongst kind of skeptic, atheist circles a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
I knew about this guy before just because I came across him on some random, you know, YouTube binge.
And I reckon most people would have seen him.
If you Google him real quickly now or look him up on YouTube, you'd recognize his face, I think.
And it's that kind of, you know, easily consumed two-minute content that you might sort of have a little – you might find it in music and then kind of forget about it.
Yeah, and I will say that he's got a very, like you say, he's got a very distinctive appearance.
So he's long, red, ginger hair and wearing kind of tie-dyed or stereotypical New Age clothing.
And he's also surprisingly buff.
He's very buff.
I'm looking at a photo of his torso at the moment, and it's impressive.
A lot of his videos on YouTube do feature him topless, but, you know, you do what you can.
Maybe this is what we need to do, like change that little meditating man into topless.
I'm not sure it would work.
Nobody wants to see a photo of my torso at the moment.
I'm working on it.
All right.
Well, so he's still around now and things have changed a bit as we'll see.
But maybe a good way to start would be to play one of the clips of his earlier content just to give people a flavor of what he produces.
Yeah, let's start with that, Chris.
That'll be good.
This is a video of him saying the title is If Meat Eaters Were Vegans.
I'll just play the first minute or so.
That salad's totally grossing me out.
I've completely lost my appetite.
How long have you been a meat eater for?
I only eat meat.
I'm going to the Meat Stock Flesh Festival.
Are you going?
Yeah, I want the tofu spring rolls, except I don't eat tofu, so do you have like a tofu-flavored chicken you can substitute in for me?
It's not that vegetable eaters are bad people.
It's just that they're terrible people.
This sausage is a meat-based vegetable substitute for cucumber.
It's got the taste and the texture of an actual cucumber with none of the cucumber.
Eating plants makes your body way too alkaline, which will definitely kill you.
Yeah.
Did anyone laugh at that, I wonder?
The thing is, I feel a bit mean because playing the...
Audio of a comedy clip without the video, it does feel that, you know, I remember finding this sort of amusing at the time.
Yeah, yeah, me too.
But there, it wasn't very funny.
It wasn't very funny.
No, no, no, that's right.
But you get a sense of what he does.
It's a little bit heavy.
It's very heavy-handed and kind of repetitive.
Well, as you say, Matt, just as you mentioned, Matt, let me play one more of his early clips, which maybe this one will come across better.
Being gluten intolerant is a fantastic opportunity for you to assert your dominance on the lives of everyone around you, which helps improve your life.
So if you're ready to have a ravenous appetite for impossible standards and dogmatic feelings of victimization, then let's get started on what you need to do to become gluten intolerant.
Be restaurant savvy.
Go to regular restaurants and order.
After they've brought you exactly what you've ordered, you discover there's gluten in it.
This is the exact time you'll want to profess your gluten-free morals to the waiter.
Is there gluten in that pizza?
Yes.
I didn't know that when I ordered it.
I can't eat that.
I'm gluten intolerant.
It's a condition.
You're going to have to take that back.
Yeah.
So you get the idea.
Yeah, and you know, it's kind of funny.
If you're in the right frame of mind and you've seen the video and it's light entertainment and not, I think some of his stuff isn't entirely unfunny.
And yeah, I'm all in favour of making that sort of observational company.
You can make fun of that.
It's good.
But my question for you, Chris, is why are we covering him if he's just doing a bit of light comedy on YouTube?
Yeah, so there's a couple of reasons.
And I should also flag up that this week is a bit of a departure because we were considering to look at the videos, right, as the output, but they're very short.
And as you've just heard, it's not really a good format to analyze.
But it turned out, as with everyone else on the planet, he has a podcast where he produces more long-form content.
And these are more serious, not so much comedy-based.
And yeah, and so why we're covering him is that in addition to making these short parody videos, he himself is also a life coach.
I think, I'm not sure if he still does that.
And was a kind of alternative health and wellness guru, giving actually sincere advice.
And in various...
Videos where he talked out of character, he explained that he used the comedy material as, and they actually turned out to be an effective recruitment tool for his life coach therapy.
Yeah, so it seems kind of paradoxical, doesn't it?
Because on one hand, he's really making fun of all of this New Age stuff, but...
He really is a new age health guru, all into spiritual energies and that kind of thing.
It's amazing.
Yeah.
So he's an interesting character because obviously, as you can see, he uses parody, he uses comedy, but he actually is promoting, in many respects, quite strong.
Alternative medicine and conspiracy theories, and especially since the coronavirus outbreak, where before there used to be just hints and nods to, like, anti-vaccine arguments or the mainstream media is, you know, rotting your brain.
Now, by far and away, the main message of his content is the coronavirus is a...
The response, at least, to the coronavirus is...
The real threat, the death statistics and everything are exaggerated.
And the establishment is censoring everything.
And we need to break free from the mainstream narratives.
So he's become, maybe the way to put it, he's become red-pilled.
Yeah, so yeah, he's a man of many contradictions.
because, first of all, that contradiction where he seems to be making fun of New Age Wu but is actually a practitioner and has been making his living from it.
And the second thing is that most people don't really associate...
He's an interesting one.
We have to get to the bottom of him.
We do.
The content that we're mainly going to focus on this week is from his Awaken with JP Sears show, which is his podcast, and a couple of his recent episodes.
104, Getting Insane Prior to the Election.
103, Spotify Censoring Joe Rogan Solo Cast.
101, Rage Against Deception Solo Cast.
And I avoided the episodes that were mostly interviews.
So these are kind of 30 to 40 minute episodes that we listen to.
But before we get to some of the content and start looking at the techniques, I think it's helpful if we listen to a snippet from one of his more recent comedy videos, because they also give a clear illustration of how his narrative has shifted.
I think the title of this is What's It Like to Believe Everything the Establishment Tells You.
People are freaking out right now.
Like, they're tired of having their constitutional rights taken away with a mandatory stay-at-home orders.
Cities are suing the California governors so their people can go back onto their beaches again.
Idiots.
Like, I'll stay at home for the rest of my life if they tell me to.
Who knows how to make the best choices for my health and my life?
Definitely not me.
So I'm more than happy to put my blind trust in power-hungry politicians and definitely uncorrupt groups like the World Health Organization.
I think they know what's best for me because, like, they know me better than I know me.
The last thing you want is people to have the freedom to make their own choices and then experience the consequences of their choices.
I think free will is a little bit of a sin.
I don't think we should have it in the first place.
A little bit, you know, a bit on the nose.
And here's just one more.
This is to highlight the kind of connection with the coronavirus skepticism.
I'm also really good at believing the COVID death count.
As anyone who is diagnosed with COVID-19 and then dies, irregardless of what they die from, pre-existing condition, or otherwise, their death is labeled a COVID death.
Makes sense to me.
Instead of letting the doctor who is treating the patient use their medical education to determine the cause of death, I think the mandate to label it a COVID death is more accurate.
And it helps the COVID death count get higher than it is.
And the higher it is, the more scared I am.
And the more scared I am, the more obedient I am.
Yes, I would like a mandatory vaccine.
I'm scared enough that I think more things should be mandatory.
Yeah, a little bit less funny than the clips you played before, Chris.
Yeah, so that's a pretty good representation of the kind of stuff he's saying now.
And it's still presented as a kind of comedy and parody, but really it's enumerating the standard list of what you might call libertarian,
anti-authority, conspiratorial talking points.
Yeah, it's an interesting one because if you look at his other videos, he does make fun of all the things that he actually does.
So just like he makes fun of the New Age alternative health woo stuff, I'm looking at a video here in front of me where he's making fun of people who believe conspiracy theories and random stuff they read on the internet.
He's a very interesting character.
What do you think's going on here, Chris?
Well, I think part of it is that he is self-aware and able to criticize his own community about certain things.
I think there's a...
There's a willingness to criticize, for example, New Age beliefs about crystals or spirits or alien from the fourth dimension.
And he's also quite in that anti-woke camp.
But I think there's much less of a willingness to criticize the people who fixate on the establishment or on vaccines being unsafe.
So I do think there's limits.
How far his self-criticism goes.
But maybe it's in this line of techniques that we've seen in the previous weeks where people issue strategic disclaimers or self-deprecating comments after they launch into these big spills, sometimes hours long,
promoting a particular viewpoint.
And then they'll caveat it by saying, you know, but of course, I don't know everything.
I could be wrong.
And I think it...
To some extent, it is strategic in that it allows them to make a claim and to also point to the disclaimer if they get criticism about it.
So I guess stacking seats.
If you're dumber than me, God help you.
I really wish God would help you.
So if you don't know what stacking seats mean, it's God help you because I'm the one explaining it when I don't know what it means.
But that's not going to stop me from explaining it.
Here we go!
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I do see a kind of intersection there of where he's coming from because I think he does – people like him do occupy an interesting space in terms of his general views on things, which is very libertarian.
It's all about the sort of self-empowerment and self-determination and self-actualization and not maximizing your health and well-being and stuff.
And taking some sort of autonomy over your own health and well-being, that's what the whole self-help industry is kind of about.
And even though we kind of historically associate that with lefty kind of hippie kind of stuff, it actually sits very well with the anti-authoritarian libertarian.
stance. So this isn't meant to be a dig at Joe Rogan, but he does spring to mind as someone who sits a little bit in that sort of same camp.
You know what I mean?
It's kind of a positive thing.
Yeah, I think it's an anti-establishment.
ideology that connects a lot of people that you would might be surprised to see being connected together and some of it is like kind of contract kind of contrarian as well i mean i think that's another
thing that makes sense you know what i mean like he makes fun of any kind of um um like what everyone else is saying you know what i mean so if everyone's like in
to essential oils and things like that.
Yeah. I think one connection which is worth flagging up and which you see in content from Joe Rogan to Eric Weinstein to JP Sears to David Icke and Alex Jones.
Is this shilling of supplements and vitamins being a consistent thing?
Now, I'm not saying that these are all just the spokes on the wheel of the supplement industry.
It's rather that the ideology ends up...
Overlapping so they can derive a lot of income from pointing out to people, like you said, about taking control of their health through supplements and not trusting the authorities to have your best interests at heart in regards to your health.
So I'm going to play a clip just to highlight some examples of what you see with the supplement advertising in JP's content.
Which will be familiar to anybody who has listened to Rogan.
I've been rocking the Ormus Super Greens.
I've also been rocking the collagen-building protein peptides.
I'm loving them both.
They're helping me have a strong immune system, great energy with a healthy, strong body and structure to myself.
So that's the kind of standard rhetoric, right?
And this is...
This is a plug for magnesium supplements.
Many of us are a little too stressed, if not way too stressed.
But here's the cool thing.
There is one key nutrient that can dramatically reduce your stress levels, and that is magnesium.
But the problem is, 80% of people have a magnesium deficiency, which means they can't reduce stress.
Our overstressed quality of life goes down.
It ain't cool.
The other problem with magnesium is much of our food and soil is deficient in magnesium.
And you might be saying, well, hey, I take a multivitamin.
Awesome.
Problem with that is most multivitamins just contain one weak form of magnesium.
But magnesium breakthrough.
Solves that problem.
Solves your stress problems because it contains all seven forms of magnesium that you need.
Yeah, look, I mean, that's...
Okay, so that kind of blatant cashing in by selling supplements really fits well with his entrepreneurial...
Capitalistic kind of approach.
And he's said this about himself.
I mean, he described his online presence as his business empire.
And he definitely sees, in fact, has said that the COVID situation is a time of business opportunity.
I think the best way to understand someone like JPC is...
Is that he's a businessman, first and foremost.
And he is all about building a brand and building a following and ultimately making money.
And, you know, there's something inherently wrong with that.
But I think it's wrong to necessarily think of him purely as someone who's just trying to make comedy just for fun or just talking about things that he...
I think in his interview with the chap who...
Runs London Real, and we can talk about that interesting scam later.
You can see that they're really bonding on that entrepreneurial side of things.
So again, it all fits with that new age self-actualization thing.
A lot of the time, those personal growth courses have a strong element of how to be successful and how to make money and how to get ahead.
I'm struggling to describe it in a simple way, but it feels like it kind of makes sense to me, Chris.
Yeah, I mean, I think that stuff is standard, new age, alternative spirituality, commercialism 101, right?
Like, make a better you, take control of your health, detoxify yourself from the poisons of modern capitalism, while the...
Health guru is enriching themselves with the spoils of modern capitalism.
But that distinction is well noted and well understood.
You know, the organic industry, for example, is huge, right?
It's billions and billions of dollars, but they do well as presenting themselves as small, local mom and pop style.
Groups fighting against the evil corporations and establishment.
And I think JP Sears is just, in one sense, that's just where he is.
He's in that new age alternative health space.
So he sells supplements and the videos he produces now are heavily branded at the start and at the end.
There's these substantial segments of him promoting whatever supplement or superfood has sponsored that.
So I flagged it mainly to highlight that although the parody exists and he does poke fun at these things, he's completely in that world and profiting from it in the normal ways.
Yeah.
Distinction and not respect, right?
Well, I think maybe that's a way to understand this pivot towards the conspiratorial sort of, you know, wake up to what the authorities are trying to do to you, seemingly political content.
Because I think if you're going to be a figure like this, whether it's Alex Jones or JPCs or the guy from London Real, whose name I can't remember.
What's his name, Chris?
David Rose.
David Rose.
They're essentially salesmen, but...
What they really depend on is that credibility as a bit of a guru, as someone who's leading the charge to help people wake up and see the truth and be contrarian, independent thinkers whose minds aren't befuddled and clouded by all of the nonsense that the authorities are trying to hold over you.
What am I allowed to say?
I can repeat what's in line with the mainstream narrative.
Cool, cool.
Well, there's nothing entertaining about that, and I think there's a lot that's untrustworthy about that.
But okay, yep, yep, I'll just keep repeating that.
So I could see the way in which the politics, which is all super appealing to the libertarian types who would be attracted to this.
To be a political guru can help them get that kind of authority that enables them to be better salesmen and make more money.
That's my theory, I guess.
Yeah, before we get to the political overlap, I'm just going to pick up on the point you made about using your intuitions to see through the establishment discourse, that that really is a part of the message that he's selling.
And here's one clip where...
He makes this explicitly clear.
And anyway, I think in a time where there's a heavy inundation left, right, and center where what to think is being spoon-fed to you, maybe you can spit out that hydrogenated thinking and let yourself feed off of your own thinking.
Right.
And he follows this up with an exhortation about your intuitions about what's true and what's correct are really important.
And this is in the context of him talking about that he doesn't believe in the coronavirus death statistics.
So there's like a real dark side to that.
But I think the logic here, the problem is really transparent.
Be true, not just to what seems like.
Behind a shadow of a doubt, my own thinking, but more importantly, and what I think is way more trustworthy and way more true, it's my feelings.
What feels true?
I want to pay attention to that.
What feels untrue?
I want to feel that so I can not go in that direction, not open my mouth to those spoons shoveling towards me.
Yeah, yeah, that's a perfect illustration, I think, Chris.
Yeah, but go ahead.
And a terrible, terrible advice for someone.
Believe what you think feels true and ignore whatever you find hard.
That's terrible advice, especially in the context of finding out what's true about a global pandemic and the virus that the ordinary person doesn't have intuitions about.
How viruses function or public health?
Thank you for saying that because it's easy for me to pass over what seems almost too obvious, which is that that is terrible, terrible advice to respond to complex topics, to just go with your gut feeling and don't believe anything that doesn't feel.
Right.
Again, it fits perfectly with that stuff we talked about, about that kind of holistic self-actualization and, on a political level, more that kind of libertarian self-determination.
But the thing that's really going on here, I think, is that people like JPCs are really leveraging what they have correctly identified as pretty widespread anxiety.
You know, a sense of confusion and a sense of, in some cases, skepticism and distrust of conventional sources of information.
That's not to say conventional and orthodox and authorities are always right about everything, but certainly they're taking advantage of an anxiety about that, and that's very appealing to a certain kind of person.
So I can see him doing this amazing dovetail of the political with the...
With the personal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think one point to note, though, is that you mentioned about this presentation of yourself as somebody that cuts through that mainstream narrative.
That gives you an air of credibility.
And I also want to note that alongside that, it's important that you also express some at least superficial humility.
Showing that you are just like the other people and you're not perfect and you recognize that.
And so here's an example from that same section where he's talking about that he doesn't necessarily have access to the truth.
I don't have the truth, but I do know what bullshit tastes like and what it feels like.
And I've got my heart, I've got my gut that I trust.
And I do know what bullshit feels like when my gut tells me.
It doesn't mean I know what the truth is, but it means I know what the truth isn't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, again, terrible, terrible advice.
I mean, we don't want to get all academic, but there's just reams of literature on applying intuitive thinking as opposed to analytical thinking.
And the trouble you can get into just in applying that to...
Complex topics.
Complex topics, yeah.
But it feels...
I mean, I think he's a person who probably, to some degree, maybe believes that.
But part of me thinks it just feels terribly, terribly cynical because they know that that's the appeal.
That kind of populist messaging is appealing at a gut level.
And, you know, something like vaccinations just isn't appealing at a gut level.
That's why people are sceptical of vaccinations because there's nothing about vaccinations that makes you think, oh...
I'm really excited about having a vaccination.
That's going to be awesome.
Yeah, I think human intuition is valuable in many respects and is maybe denigrated in some areas too much that people fixate too much on requiring very specific evidence before they'll accept something.
But that's not the case for complex scientific topics or topics that might involve counterintuitive...
Yeah, exactly.
Like understanding Bayesian statistics, for instance.
I mean, you're completely right that it's what you said before, which is the key thing is that a lot of the things that are political issues these days are actually reasonably complex, reasonably abstract.
Broad-scale things for which intuition is just a terrible guide.
That's not to say intuitive thinking is bad.
Generally, it's extremely efficient and it's extremely good for, say, navigating social situations and quickly getting a feel for whether or not somebody likes you or not, that kind of thing.
Yeah, but people like JPCers weaponise that tendency of appealing to people's gut.
I mean, a good example is masks, right?
The right-wing in the United States absolutely hate masks.
You know, they take them off and it's a sign of signaling and your independence and so on.
So that makes it perfect.
Like, on an intuitive level, masks to an American, not so much to Japanese people as you'd know, Chris, they just don't feel right, right?
It's associated with masking your identity.
It just looks weird.
It just doesn't.
Doesn't feel like everything is fine when people are wearing masks.
Yet you actually have to engage in some kind of analytical thought process to actually see the rationale for why actually wearing masks might be a good idea, even though it's something at a gut level you don't really want to do.
So people like JPCers are really just saying, no, don't use your head.
Don't think about it too much.
Trust your heart because your heart will guide you in the right direction, which is wrong.
Well, since you brought up the mask issue, he does have a very specific conspiracy and set of beliefs around masks and how they shouldn't be worn.
And it falls in line with what you're saying, that he regards the fierce as almost a...
Spiritual center for connection with other people that covering is severing that connection.
So let me play the clip of him explaining this.
I'm saying, I don't know if this is your message, but I'm saying my message to me is human connection is enlivening.
And people's individual identity and sovereignty and how that's all expressed through the articulateness of their face is a connection that I want to have.
People's identity matters to me.
If you look at what happens when you hide your face, you look at someone else hiding their face, what happens to your level of connection?
It goes down.
You can't connect.
Yeah, so that's a perfect illustration of that intuitive argumentation.
I didn't mean to preempt his talking points, but it seems like I did.
No, well, I think you have only preempted him to a certain extent because, yes, he's going on about the...
The emotional connection we form through seeing people's faces.
But his logic extends much further than that.
And I'll play this clip.
It's a bit long, about 50 seconds.
But it goes to the full extent of how important he regards the mask issue and what the kind of sinister motive behind wearing masks might be.
So, yeah, bear with me.
And it's happening.
You could say, well, it's for a medical thing.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm not convinced of that.
It seems like there's a weird exercise of obedience in surrendering our connection, surrendering our personal sovereignty.
Get ready to think I'm a conspiracy theorist because here this comes.
If we're not able to get connection from our community, Because we plug up the connective outlet that we plug into each other in, i.e.
our faces.
So we block that connective outlet with a mask.
Then who are you going to connect to?
Whoever's telling you to do shit.
We become more obedient because we need connection.
We're people, so if we can't connect to our communities nearly as much, then we will connect to whoever's giving us orders.
Yeah.
Really bad.
I don't like that.
I don't like what he just said, JP.
Actually, he's going to preempt that and explain to you how you having a negative reaction is just a sign of your own conditioning.
We can get to that, but let's take a break from we hear him talk for a minute.
I think it's just important to know how grand these seemingly Unrelated points can become, right?
It isn't just that people are mistaken about how preventative masks are or they're being overcautious.
No, it's actually a plot to reduce human connection and to increase obedience amongst the public by having people wear masks.
And the level of...
Paranoid delusion in there is pretty high.
Like, that's on the level of Alex Jones and David Icke and that kind of thing.
And it isn't just scepticism about the efficacy of masks, right?
It isn't that.
No, no, exactly right.
I mean, you know, the degree to which masks are helpful in preventing spread of disease, I'm sure you could have a rational discussion about it.
But that's not really the point.
The point is that JPC is...
Tapping into sources of disconnect and sources of anxiety and providing a kind of a narrative that resolves those anxieties and provides some kind of satisfying direction, i.e.
resistance, to sort of go down.
And it really does remind me of the appeal that alternative and complementary therapies have, which is, like, they don't work for the most part.
But they're extremely popular, and the reason why they're popular is because they are designed to be appealing.
They're designed to be intuitively appealing.
It feels right that using some kind of essential oils and putting them on your body or doing something like...
It feels right that that's going to do something good for you.
The use of these, the emphasis on natural products, the sense that they're going to balance your chakras and that you've got toxins that need to be removed from your body, none of that makes any kind of medical sense.
But it all makes sense on that intuitive gut level, which is what JPC is tapping into.
And you're right, Chris.
He takes that as a starting point.
That's the point where the appeal happens.
And then it goes straight into the paranoid conspiracies to provide a narrative behind why these things that feel bad...
It provides a rationale for the feeling.
The feeling is that they're bad and that these people are out to get us and that it's all terrible and we don't want to do it.
And then the narrative that's provided for it is batshit crazy conspiratorial thinking.
Yeah, and I'm going to play a clip now where he's basically telling his audience, if you have a negative reaction to that, it's a sign that you have the problem, not him.
And I think that's an actually quite effective psychological or emotional manipulative technique where you preempt how some people are going to respond and then you give them an alternative narrative for why that is,
right?
Look, if you're resistant to me pointing out these truths about the world, that's your indoctrination.
So don't listen to that part, right?
Be open-minded.
And here's him explaining, If you're responding like that, it's because you might fear social connection.
And again, if human connection is something that your personal choice decides isn't for you or is too dangerous, disconnect.
Don't do it.
And I'm going to do it anytime I feel compelled.
If that makes someone feel uncomfortable sitting around knowing what I'm doing, Guess what?
That's your discomfort.
Yeah, that's not his issue.
And it's the libertarian streak, as you mentioned, but it's the part I want to focus on a little bit because I think it dovetails with a lot of the previous figures that we've looked at.
There's this tendency to present the audience that...
Is willing to listen as being the true open-minded truth seekers.
I appreciate you listening.
And I appreciate you maybe kind of like vibing with some of what I say.
And I appreciate you if you don't vibe with it.
If you disagree.
Awesome.
We can love and accept each other.
Regardless if we agree or disagree, we don't need to be the rageful rioters who are like, oh, you are thinking something different than me.
I think you deserve to die.
And to kind of praise them, that if they are accepting of these viewpoints, that that illustrates that they're more intelligent, more open-minded than other people who might react negatively.
This is another clip of him talking directly to the audience.
Here, we've wandered into what I think is a place of boldness.
I'm not sugarcoating my thoughts for a couple of reasons.
One, I think my thoughts are important.
I think your thoughts are important.
So I don't want to sugarcoat them to you.
And two, I think you're too intelligent.
If I'm bullshitting you, playing it safe, I don't want to risk people not liking me, so let me just say bullshit.
I respect you more than that.
I want to communicate with you at real levels.
It reminds me of Eric Weinstein talking about how emotionally connected he is with the Portal audience, for example.
Yeah, that's right.
It does remind me of the Eric and Brett one scene, partly obviously because of this latching on to COVID and pushing conspiracy theories around it, but also in the sense that it's tapping into that desire where people value...
I guess, independence of thought and autonomy.
And the thing that is disliked about public health campaigns of any kind is that they're kind of a group level thing.
It's a one size fits all.
And you're basically just a unit in the population that needs to comply with the thing, whether it's vaccinating against measles or whatever.
And that's kind of your role.
But if you look at the literature on anti-vax sentiments, it's...
Very similar psychology to this.
So the kinds of parents who are most receptive to anti-vax conspiracy theories are actually the people who are more educated and quite well-off, upper middle class, in fact.
They're the kinds of people that are actually quite intensive in their parenting and they want more autonomy in terms of doing it.
And they're not...
They don't like the feeling of being propagandized too.
And so the public health campaigns, which is basically saying, hey, get your measles vaccination, that's not very appealing to them.
Whereas when they see options like taking your kid to a baby gym or some kind of expensive but not particularly common thing, that is kind of appealing for them because that's them exercising their autonomy.
Yeah, I see the appeal and it's the same kind of thing here.
And again, you see that crossover between conspiracy theories and that alternative health and self-actualization of yourself or your children in the case of vaccinations.
Yeah.
And there's also this clear, emotional, earnest language.
Now, in one case, this is something that is sort of specific to the health and wellness and spirituality.
It's not like...
Emotional expression is foreign to that sphere.
No, no.
It's the most important part, arguably, of the complementary therapies that they treat you as an individual and engage with you on this almost spiritual kind of level and recognize your unique individuality and autonomy.
Yeah.
Sorry to butt in.
Go on.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
So that's definitely like a key feature of that community.
But as we've seen...
It shows up a lot in just the way people speak about their audiences that are in the guru sphere.
And I'm just going to play two short clips of JP explaining to his audience how much he appreciates them.
I just want you to know.
I appreciate you.
I want you to know the viewership in my videos that I put out every week.
It's been escalating, you know, way more views than ever before, and I just want to thank you for being a part of that.
That's one.
And most importantly, thank you for listening.
Thank you for watching my stuff.
Thank you for being weird enough that you'd even want to spend an ounce of time experiencing what my perspectives are via the podcast videos or on the stage.
I just so appreciate you.
Yeah, there's a lot more of that, right?
It's a consistent feature.
And I get it in the sense that, you know, engaging with your audience, making them feel interested, it's not something that is restricted just to gurus or the alternative health community.
But it is something which is, like, really notable and really consistent in their material.
That they always have these segments.
And we've looked at a bunch of quite diverse people, but all of them so far engage in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I guess it's about that affirmation and making your audience feel special.
It's about making people feel good, I suppose.
That's the important thing.
So it's a bit of a contradiction, really, because you want to present yourself as...
As a bit of a guru, as a bit of an important person to follow.
But at the same time, you're appealing to people's sense of being an individual and being a contrarian and being an independent thinker.
So people don't like being treated like their sheep, which is kind of part of the whole...
So I guess the way to reconcile that is that you emphasize that we are a kind of special community.
Free thinkers.
Free thinkers, et cetera.
We could list a whole bunch of adjectives to describe it.
And that's got to feel good.
So that's kind of getting into that sort of in-group, out-group dynamics, which I'm sure you're aware of in terms of the religious, where it plays out in religions.
It's a common feature of virtually any cult.
In terms of the social dynamics, where they build up that sense of difference and specialness and those emotional connections within the group and contrast that with outsiders.
That's just a well-known dynamic, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
And this connection to having a cause that we've talked about in other episodes, these grand narratives that you get attached to by a guru type.
So some of the content we've heard about the coronavirus has those characteristics, but the point that you made about this being related to an underlying current of anti-authoritarianism,
anti-censorship, libertarian viewpoints is one of the consistent features across JP's content.
So he talks about...
His mission, presenting him as a crusading warrior for truth.
So let me allow him to describe that himself.
Having the warrior-like passion to crusade for what I stand for right now and the purpose I serve.
And a lot of that is freedom from fear, helping people wake up.
And simultaneously, the other thing is having inner peace while I do that.
Yeah, so as I listen to that, the comparison that comes to mind is with Scientologists, but I guess with a lot of other organizations like the Westboro Baptist Church.
And I was just talking about how they really build up that in-group, out-group thing.
But the other thing that these religious cults do is provide a mission.
Provide something much greater than yourself to provide that sort of passionate purpose that binds you together.
Now, the interesting thing about people like JPC is, and I think it's also true of Eric Weinstein, is that they also have that passionate purpose.
But the interesting thing is it's not...
Religious, it's political, and in the case of JPC, it's a little bit spiritual as well.
But it's this political purpose, which is a libertarian-type thing, and it's very much big ideas, fighting censorship, fighting the authorities trying to crush your spirit and keep us separated from each other.
It's emotive stuff, and it's almost like the political agenda is serving the same role that the religious agenda.
Serves in those more traditional cults.
Yeah, I think you said it better than I can, that there's a sense in which the culture war or the political element of modern culture is creating these group identities and these grand value systems and senses of meaning that are maybe worth...
More in the realm of religions or other totalizing ideologies in other ages.
Yeah, I mean, it does annoy me quite a bit because, you know, especially with someone like JP Sears, he's quite explicit about this.
He's in it.
For business reasons.
This is purely a business enterprise.
And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with making a living and being a podcaster or being a YouTube content creator and so on.
But that is the truth of why he's doing it.
So I get a little bit annoyed when it's presented as an almost spiritual imperative to be a follower and a donator and a client.
Part of the response that he would have to that is that, one, the ultimate commitment to anti-censorship or free speech is more important to him than making profit, regardless of whether or not that's true.
I think that's the argument they would make.
And the secondary argument would be, like you highlighted before, that...
There's a strong element in these communities that sees the ability to succeed in business as being connected to spiritual potency and to doing the right thing.
If you're fighting against the forces of evil, that good things will come to you so that you end up successful with followers making money is because you're a genuine person, which is breaking for the narrative.
That's actually, that's kind of interesting, Chris, because isn't there a Christian, one of these evangelical doctrines that, you know, righteousness will be rewarded with material success?
Do you happen to know?
Yeah, I think that's a predestination.
I think it's a Calvinist, or at least some variety of Calvinist belief about if you were wealthy and successful in life, it was because you were chosen to be so, right?
And I'm sure that exists in other forms of Christianity outside Calvinism.
Yeah, well, it may just be a coincidence, but it's certainly very helpful, that kind of thinking, to reconcile those things.
I mean, I guess one of the other reasons I'm sceptical about motives is that people like Brian Rose, who runs London Real, who JPCs is quite closely connected with, and I think we'll cover Brian Rose in a later episode.
Oh, yeah.
Well, we can talk about...
The episode that JP Sears and him do together now.
He has an extended interview, which he called his most important episode, maybe just five episodes or so back, with David Rose, ostensibly about censorship and free speech.
And it's JP Sears interviewing David Rose about his experience with being censored and his new free speech platforms, which he is apparently...
So why would we have any reason to be sceptical of that, Matt?
Why would we be sceptical?
Well, I don't want to get too deeply into Brian Rose and London Real because this will make it a three-hour episode.
But in short, there seems no doubt that Brian Rose is a complete scam artist.
And he and JP have a strong connection.
That interview was basically him spruiking.
Brian Rose and London Real and forming business connections.
What's spruiking?
You don't know what spruiking is, Chris?
Is that Australianism?
No, I'm sure.
That's normal English, I'm sure.
But it's selling.
Yeah, selling, basically.
Okay, for those of us who don't know, spruiking is selling.
Carry on.
Sorry about that.
But the thing is that London Real and Brian Rose has been pretty...
Unequivocally shown to be a total scam.
And he's essentially ripped off almost $2 million from...
His loyal adherents purportedly to pay for him to further free speech and fighting censorship.
But actually, it's almost certain that this guy has simply pocketed the money and has now transitioned off YouTube ostensibly on free speech principles, but really so that he can bring in a bunch of content from David Icke, the guy that very famously said that governments are run by lizard people in human form.
He can monetize his content more effectively.
So you can probably say more about Brian Rose, but the only point that I wanted to make is that JP is very much, very much in sync with the approach of people like Brian Rose.
Yeah, allegedly, Mark.
All allegedly.
It's alleged that he is pocketing all the money and stuff, but I will say, if not all the signs point to...
Dodgy going on.
So what you say, Chris, is I'm not only going to get sued by the psychologists, but I'm also going to get sued by Brian Rose.
Yeah, I'm saving you from yourself, Matt.
So David Rose has a YouTube channel and has rode a wave of controversy about giving a platform to David Icke, promoting coronavirus conspiracies, linking it to 5G, which got took down.
He solicited donations to build a platform, sue Facebook, sue YouTube, do a whole bunch of things that the amount of money he's received is much greater than what you would need to host streaming content.
And also, there are already platforms existing which do what he claims.
Anyway, their interview is quite telling.
Here's a clip, by the way, of David Rose.
Saying that he doesn't like asking for money.
And let's see how convincing it sounds.
And finding 35,000 people that opened up their wallets and donated money to have a censorship-free platform.
Something that, quite honestly, JP, I would have never asked for money if it wasn't for this.
I never asked for a dollar in nine years.
I don't like asking even for other people's help.
So this has been me growing up as well as a human being.
Yeah, him growing up to accept donations.
What a selfless person he is.
But that interview is, yeah, it's quite telling for how much of that worldview of the anti-establishment, free speech, it's all about commitment to free speech, narrative that JP Sears is on board with.
And this includes presenting people like Alex Jones and David Icke as brave truth tellers.
Now, people are always clear to add in a caveat that, no, I don't endorse everything they've said.
They've made some mistakes.
But, you know, they also tell a lot of truth.
And they also, they're a voice that the mainstream won't let you hear.
And I thought, you know what?
Maybe I can learn something from this guy.
And every single time I had him on, the more I thought, man, this guy is speaking a lot of truth.
Okay, a little crazy, but a lot of truth too.
A lot of that disingenuous or I don't think those people are spending much time with the content that they're promoting.
They're going by the fact that they can appear on each other's shows and backpat each other.
But the reason that Alex Jones is somebody that you should be concerned about associating with is not just because of his commitment to free speech.
It's because of how much he promotes violent, far-right rhetoric.
He alleges conspiracy theories.
And he isn't just a weirdo fringe guy who believes in aliens and demons.
That's part of it.
But he's pretty hardcore far right in a lot of his content, if you listen to.
So I find this overlap telling that it's always people like Cernovich or Molyneux or David Icke or Alex Jones who are the people that are being presented as voices that we need to hear.
And there's a...
There's a clear free thread there about them being conspiracies strongly on the right.
Maybe the reason they would explain that is, well, it's only conservatives who get banned.
But I don't know.
It seems more to me that they are the people who focus on using free speech as the kind of rallying call.
And they've worked out that that is a very effective way to package messages which might not otherwise be palatable, right?
Like if, for example, and you're hosting Holocaust deniers like Nick Fuentes, that's not a cause that people really want to tie their badge to.
But if you present Nick Fuentes as a anti-establishment figure who's talking out against the conservative and democratic mainstream media control, well, that's fine.
But the fact that he promotes Holocaust denialism
Yeah, no, it is very suspicious.
And when the people like David Rose who say that they're all about free speech and anti-censorship are also, in doing so, are collecting large amounts of money which are going to obscure places or being used for obscure things.
And he's also been indicted for...
Running a $15 million Ponzi scheme involving some kind of Bitcoin-like currency.
So yeah, I don't want to be accused of...
What's the word?
What am I in danger of?
What am I in danger of?
Libel.
Libel.
That's what I'm in danger of.
Libel.
You're in Australia.
You're fine.
You have big knives and crocodiles.
Yeah, that's right.
Come after me.
You have to get past the crocodiles first.
Yeah, so it is a bit suspicious and it all doesn't really smell exactly right, does it?
No, but let's hear how they frame themselves.
This common theme of presenting the world as being on the precipice of a disaster, like we heard with James Lindsay, there's always the threat is coming now and it's real and we're approaching a dystopian future if we don't act.
So you might think that Joe Rogan's issue with Spotify employees trying to censor him, for example, is modern day Internet minutia.
It's not something that really speaks to massive grand societal implications.
But you'd be wrong, Matt.
And let JPCers explain how.
And here's what might just happen.
Cool.
Precedence is set.
We've censored the biggest podcast in the world.
So now we can censor all the podcasts.
Next step.
Hey, here at Spotify, we have a lot of music.
We as self-righteous employees don't like the messages and all this music.
Let's censor the music.
What is happening to art as we speak?
Has there been a giant bonfire set and all the art is being thrown into it?
Yes.
Hey, let's just burn your books.
Hey, what happens when we're burning all the art?
What happens to human expression?
Yeah, so Joe Rogan's podcast, some people at Spotify are complaining about it, so that's going to lead to all art, all music, and all books being burnt and destroyed.
Human expression is in danger, Matt.
Yeah, so this hyperbole and catastrophization, this is something we've encountered before, hasn't it, in terms of the other people we cover?
Just a tad.
Yeah, so look, I don't know what else to say, really.
I mean, the clips you're playing kind of speak for them.
Look, there are lots of interesting questions.
I'm imagining responses to this, and I can imagine that some people would say, hey, we're not really sure about how useful masks are in preventing the virus.
Or there are legitimate questions about to what degree should social media platforms do control over their content?
Should they be thought of as the public meeting place or a utility for free speech?
It's all very complicated.
I get it.
The kind of discourse that these figures are running is not a reasonable discussion of the issues.
It's using it as an emotive draw point to provide their followers with some sort of sense of outrage and purpose and to mobilize them for whatever their reasons are.
It could just be getting a bit more famous.
It could be making money.
It's not a good dynamic.
No, look, Matt, one of the most famous war propaganda posters is the one of the child asking the father, what did you do in the war?
To kind of encourage people to enlist and not dodge the draft.
I'm not sure the exact context, but anyway.
And you might consider it hyperbolic for somebody to invoke that imagery when talking about their objection to Spotify or something like that.
But that's...
Just hear JP on the episode with David Rose and how he frames that issue.
And I realize, you know, if my son, if God forbid the freedoms continue to be eroded away and in 20 years we look back and the world is just different.
My son asks me, Dad, what did you do when our freedoms were being taken away?
My answer sure as shit ain't going to be nothing.
Right.
So, I mean, like you say, it's all pushing the emotional buttons and giving people a cause which matters.
In 20 years, people will look at your actions now.
Did you donate to Brian Rose?
And did you share?
JP Sears video on YouTube?
These are the things that matter.
Or if you're JP Sears, did you make a video criticizing the coronavirus response?
I don't think that's disingenuous.
I think in the same way with James Lindsay, that's how they see themselves as the crusading heroes in a story where there are real villains and they're all...
The establishment forces.
What you're doing, what you're leading the charge of, charge on, like, you remind me of William Wallace on Braveheart.
You know, that archetype of the hero, and I haven't seen your butt yet, you know, real men don't wear anything underneath.
But, you know, the archetype of the hero who crusades for freedom, they're always someone who's willing to die for freedom.
Yeah, like I think...
I think a healthy streak of narcissism is very helpful if you're going to play that role.
You know, you see that in people like Donald Trump, where they kind of believe, they believe whatever it is they're saying at the moment.
It just happens that what they're saying is pushing all the right buttons and very self-serving.
But, you know, I think, like you said, they're all about providing that grand mission and the imperative sort of call to action.
Like there's a crisis that means you should act now, by now.
It's like buying a set of steak knives, I guess.
But, you know, it's like Scientology, where they have a goal for the true spiritual enlightenment and freedom of all individuals.
I mean, that's a good goal.
Who wouldn't want to get behind that, Chris?
Yeah.
So maybe one point that sets J.P. Sears apart from some of the other figures in this space is the self-deprecating nature and the kind of use of comedy.
After he makes serious points, To kind of soften it.
And I've got a nice example of that.
So we did and ended up selling all nine shows out at full capacity, which I loved.
But here's a beautiful thing.
Now, by the way, you might say, well, that's irresponsible of you.
Like, hey, I'm not the governor.
I'm someone who loves human connection and human choice.
And I will tell you this.
Naysayer, there was not one person there who showed up with a gun against their head wanting to not be there against their will.
If someone didn't want to be there, guess what?
They weren't fucking there!
So, human choice!
Now, I want to censor people that don't choose the way I choose.
I want to censor their actions and their speech.
Me!
Fuck me!
So this kind of, you know, make a serious point and then do a funny voice is actually a fairly consistent thing that he does.
And it's a bit like we saw with Jordan Peterson, right?
Where he'll play out these engagements with imaginary people.
But in the way that J.P. Sears does it, he's always using this comedic sneering voice to show...
This is the opinion of the people who disagree with him and how ridiculous it is.
And there's a section where he actually clearly describes what he uses parody for and how it is strategically to show the absurdity of the logic of the positions that he's presenting.
So this is him talking about the Joe Rogan video.
And in the video, you'll see my...
Myself and my dear friend Brent were playing the woke, outraged Spotify employees that are wanting to threaten to walk out.
We want Joe Rogan censored.
In the video, we portray the logic that these people have so that you can see how absurd the logic is.
I think that approach of using comedy and adopting this ironic mode is pretty effective.
That's something that's been talked about a fair bit when people talk about the 4chan alt-right type culture, which also relies really heavily on that kind of ironic shitposting type of approach,
which kind of allows that...
That rhetoric of ridicule without really committing yourself or really making explicit what it is that you're saying.
Yeah.
I think that's definitely part of it, that it's hard to criticize someone doing a parody, right?
Because it's comedy.
It's ironic.
It's a joke.
But as he just outlines there, the whole point is his videos and a lot of his content is simply designed to push A particular viewpoint by making the viewpoint he wants to criticize,
you know, presented in the most absurd and exaggerated form that he can.
So it isn't just exposing the absurd logic.
It's in many respects creating a caricature to mock.
And Follow Ted is this funny comedy sitcom from the 90s in Ireland.
Yeah, I know Father Ted.
It's good.
Okay.
And there's an episode in it with the most sarcastic priest in Ireland.
And the advice given to the housekeeper of Mrs. Doyle is whatever he says, he means the opposite.
And I actually think that's a pretty good key for understanding, you know, J.P. Sears content, the parody videos.
Whatever point he's promoting in the video.
His viewpoint is the polar opposite of it.
That's it.
So there's nothing really deep or clever about it, but it means you should be able to criticize that content because it's not that it doesn't have a point of view.
It's not that it's not pushing the message.
It's just cloaking it in a comedy parody exterior.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, the thing is that the comedy aspect is really thin.
Like a lot of them.
It's really just rhetoric, but just with the thinnest veneer of comedy.
And yeah, I think it's a pretty effective rhetorical approach, but it's not a very upfront or fair approach to talking about things.
Interesting aspect of it is that it comes in his solo podcast, right?
It's understandable when it's in a parody video, which is focused on presenting some character.
But he uses it when he's talking about his own beliefs.
It's kind of like it's an automatic go-to for him if he wants to discredit criticism.
And it's the same feeling I get with the self-deprecating comments.
So here's just two examples of him issuing self-deprecating comments.
And you might be saying, JP, so you're saying things that are insanely predictable, like are predictable to you?
Like, yeah, I mean, that is what I'm saying.
That's one.
So I guess stacking seats.
If you're dumber than me, God help you.
I really wish God would help you.
So if you don't know what stacking seats mean, it's got to help you because I'm the one explaining it when I don't know what it means.
But that's not going to stop me from explaining it.
Here we go!
Yeah, so with those clips, Matt, again, it's probably beaten a dead horse, but it's just that it feels semi-genuine to make disparaging comments about how ill-informed you are.
Slightly less so when you then go on to impart your viewpoint and to argue for it.
It feels like having your cake and eating it, as we've experienced many times before with the other figures we've covered.
Yeah, that's right.
It's a nice little maneuver, I guess, which kind of says, oh, look, I'm just floating ideas.
You know, don't need to take me too seriously.
But then go on to make a very emphatic narrative that is absolutely and incontrovertibly true.
And then maybe to finish it off with a little disclaimer as well.
Yeah, just asking questions.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I don't know if any of that's true.
I just know, whoa, those are questions I'm asking.
Those are questions I'm asking.
Yahoo!
Okay, so let's try to get to the last couple of points and round off.
So we've touched on it in earlier sections, but I think his coronavirus conspiracy focus, it can't be overemphasized how much that is now a central feature of his content.
And it's reflected when you look back at this.
Offhand comments about skepticism about vaccines or that kind of thing.
In the one hand, it isn't surprising that he would end up in this sphere, but I want to highlight just how deep in he goes, okay?
So this is him outlining his views on the coronavirus.
Y 'all know my stance on the coronavirus, how...
This thing has just been used, in my opinion, in a sickening way to control the public, manipulate the public, potentially try to drastically influence an election at the expense of the public's well-being and psychology indoctrinating them into fear.
And so I'm already like, dude, I was over this by the middle of April.
That's when I start seeing numbers.
I'm like, well, I think we're overreacting.
Thank God we're overreacting.
It's not as bad as we said it's going to be.
This is a miracle!
Then a few weeks go by.
A few months go by.
It's like, dude, guys, why are you not rolling back these restrictions?
Look at the evidence!
Yeah, well, it's pretty standard.
It's pretty much extreme.
One of the dynamics I really dislike about conspiracy theories is tapping into people's anxieties and providing an enemy, providing some people or organisation or something to blame for the source of those fears.
JP is obviously blaming certain segments of society for it.
And that's one of the reasons why conspiracy theories are not just a bit of harmless speculation, but are actually quite
Yeah, and actually his viewpoint that the virus is not severe and that the death statistics have been over-exaggerated, he ties that in with recommendations that people I think the coronavirus isn't a hoax.
I think the reaction to the coronavirus is a hoax.
There I said it.
And you might say, JP, you're crazy.
And I'll say, that could very well be true.
And you might say, JP, what are your references?
And I'd say, well, there's a lot.
Yet the single best reference I've seen.
For illuminating a perspective on the whole pandemic outside of the mainstream's narrative, fictional narration of it?
The single best source, I think, is Mickey Willis' film Indoctrination, which you can watch for free at PlandemicSeries.com.
So, like you say, it's not just giving an inaccurate representation.
Tying people or promoting to people an information ecosystem which is unreliable and gives advice that can be directly harmful.
There's a clip here where he's talking about the lack of severity of the coronavirus and then issuing a disclaimer.
And I think it's worth listening to.
Sorry, Matt.
So the degree of...
Severity of this pandemic that's looking so unsevere.
Heart goes out to anybody who's gotten sick or lost a loved one.
There's the disclaimer, so you can't tell me I'm a fucking jerk.
But it just looks like there's a disproportion reaction seven months later to fictitious numbers rather than the reality of the numbers that we're looking at.
By the way, of the...
200,000 deaths.
So if we look at 6% of those are caused from COVID alone, as opposed to like you have COVID and cancer or COVID and diabetes and COVID and heart disease.
Yeah.
I mean, I know I have the same reaction.
Because, yeah, I mean, we can rebut these stupid talking points, which are pretty familiar and float around.
Obviously, everybody, virtually everyone in the United States has some kind of comorbidity, right?
So you cannot simply eliminate.
Yeah, epidemiologists have considered that.
Yeah, they really have.
And in fact, there were 300,000 excess deaths in the US, and even when they eliminate.
The comorbidities and so on, it brings it down.
Yeah, after they do that kind of elimination and control, it comes to 200K.
But, you know, debating conspiracy theories by pointing out all of their errors in their so-called evidence and so on is just like a whack-a-mole exercise, obviously, isn't it?
Yeah, it doesn't make a difference.
I mean, it doesn't interrupt their worldview.
I think it does make a difference in general to have rebuttals to the arguments out there.
But it's not our job, as you say, to rebut all of the arguments being presented.
But the point I want to make is, this is a global pandemic that has killed over a million people.
I mean, you can see the hospitals, right?
You know people who have died, 200,000 people in the U.S. alone.
And yet still, the conspiracy mindset is able to find ways to question that or to dismiss it as, well, maybe those deaths were just, you know, things that were going to happen anyway.
And he issues in that...
But first of all, that doesn't feel super sincere.
Secondly, there are people dying.
This is a virus that we don't have an immunity to.
And yes, the death rate, like, thank God, it's not massively high.
But it is a serious...
Disease for the people who are elderly or have comorbidities, which is a huge amount of people.
And I think it speaks to, I don't know, a callous response or a very individual fixated response to say, well, but most young, healthy people recover.
Yes, they do.
And a lot of elderly people die and humans transmit disease.
That's the issue.
It's not...
There's a massive risk to everyone if you're young and healthy and fit.
There's a risk, but it's not huge.
But the risk factor is mainly for elderly, immunocompromised people.
Yeah.
Actually, an interesting little factoid here is that apparently the excess death rate for 25 to 44-year-olds is actually up by like 26% or so over this period.
Obviously, their baseline death rate is lower than people who are older.
But even so, it just illustrates that, yeah, the mortality risk is very real and the fact that it's so infectious.
But, you know, we don't need to relitigate whether COVID should be taken seriously.
But just to speak to your main point, which is that it is callous and that is a feature of conspiracy theorists because by disconnecting with reality, it...
It allows you to just kind of turn off that normal, you know, it's very easy to just wave away really quite severe things because you simply deny the facts of it, deny the reality of it.
Yeah.
And, I mean, we kind of touched on that earlier when we were talking about the mask issue, but...
JP tells this story where he's gone to comedy clubs, right?
Because he's doing comedy shows.
And he's kind of arguing from his perspective that it's better when the clubs are at full capacity and when people aren't wearing masks, he can feel a better connection.
I think the capacity was about 250 people in the club.
And when I was on stage, I would say, I mean, I would say maybe.
1% of people there had a mask on in the crowd.
And awesome.
Third choice.
Great choice!
It's beautiful.
And then, man, it felt so good to see a sea of human faces.
I mean, we connect via our faces.
Right?
There's this story, which he's told in a couple of episodes now, at least two of them, about how many people he hugged.
And he uses this as a way to actually trigger, to talk about triggering reactions to people.
So let me just play one last clip from that section.
You know, when I was there in Florida, I guess a week and a half ago at this point, doing the VIP meet and greets, Either hugged or shook hands with probably about 800 people in Florida.
And it's not lost on me that some people hearing this right now are triggered.
Just going fucking hysterical, losing their shit.
And I want you to know, I'm glad you are, that discomfort you're feeling is not me imposing it on you.
That is your physiology.
Reacting to a story that your mind holds.
I think it's hilarious.
Yeah, yeah.
It is extremely callous and selfish, isn't it?
Because you don't like masks, you want to feel that connection.
And you don't think it's severe, right?
That's his other part.
But there's...
There's one part, Matt, where he mentions the outcome of hugging 800 people.
And I just want to play it to you, just, like, one last tip.
Sorry, I said one last tip, but this is really the last one of this section.
And I feel fine.
Like, if I were to have gotten sick, I'd be like, all right, next time I probably won't do that.
Probably won't do that.
Yeah, that just got to me, because...
He's saying, well, I didn't get sick, so that was fine to hug.
But the part that he's not imagining there is all of the people in the audience, all of their family members down the line, right?
It's like it's a very self-focused worldview.
And also the notion that if he did get sick, that would cause him to change his perspective.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it's all connected to that sort of intuitive and kind of libertarian way of thinking, which is unless it happens to you, unless you actually experience it yourself, then it's really not real.
So the kind of, you know, the very abstract talk about epidemiological facts and so on, like, I think at a visceral level, it just doesn't mean anything to people like JPCs.
What matters is the stuff that he cares about, which is that sort of self-help.
Self-actualizing, discover your real potential, discover the meaning in human interactions.
And it's very, yeah, it's that experiential mindset which supports some of these very callous opinions.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's a depressing note.
So before we finish with the windup, I'll just talk about one more topic that struck me in a lot of his content.
So there's this constant refrain in a lot of his episodes that he emphasizes that he isn't on the right.
He's just criticizing people with absurd opinions from the left and the right.
It's not based on political partisanship.
That's his message.
And by the way, I'm not going to try to pick on the left here.
I'll single out...
Very absurd human behavior.
I don't care if it's on the left or the right.
There's some on each for sure.
But I'm going to call a spade a spade.
I'll call irrational, hysterical, emotionally charged human behavior that any day of the week.
I don't care if I see it in me, my wife, the right, the left, the fucking up, the fucking down.
And that's something that we've heard before from James Lindsay, for example.
But these constant refrains about not being on the right are undercut by the fact that so much of the content is just really an echo of right-wing culture talking points.
And, you know, the right, yes, they do screwed up stuff.
Like, I am not saying they're not.
I am not saying I'm on the right, dude.
I am fucking neither, okay?
Yeah, I'm just saying the topic at hand, the left stance on it, is incredibly disappointing to me.
I think people on the left deserve better than that.
I think people everywhere deserve better than that.
So let me just give one example.
Here's him talking about George Soros.
He seems kind of like the George Soros of the animal kingdom.
Like, what the hell, Bob?
Trying to kill off the pet population?
George Soros, you're trying to kill off the human population, but certainly trying to kill their freedoms.
Yeah, so casual mentions to Soros, or for example, here's Biden.
More so whatever deep state corporations have their arm up his flaccid anus controlling him.
What's that for a picture?
Lovely image.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, all these conspiracy theories kind of join up, don't they?
The George Soros stuff, the Holocaust denial, sort of ultra-right stuff, the flat-earthers.
That's the thing, isn't it?
The interesting aspect for me is this is not to say there's no conspiracy theorists on the left.
There are.
seems to be, at the very least, a significant overlap with Trumpian Fox News, that kind of neck of the woods.
And we get JP's recent episodes have been about court packing.
So he could stack the Supreme Court with more left judges, which means then the left would control the Supreme Court, which then it scares people because, you know, some parts of the left are like wanting radical shit to happen,
like censor the crap out of people.
So it's just like...
And by the way, it would scare me if the right wanted to do that as well.
Predictably, the restrictions in Florida is a free state, whereas Portland or other ones are fear-based.
Man, and I realize Florida is definitely the most ahead-of-the-curve place I've been to here in the past few months, and I've been to a lot of places.
You know, Portland's probably the most locked down, fear-based, and Florida's the most free, you know, non-fear-based.
And things like Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, that it's important that Trump gets to assign a court judge.
Ruth Bader, gee, she died.
Now, my understanding of, like...
The law, like, outside of, like, hysterical emotional politics, my understanding of the law is like, okay, like, then the president appoints the new Supreme Court justice.
And I actually watched something today that, like, confirmed, like, yeah, that's what the Constitution says.
And it's hard to see, despite disclaimers that this is all just criticizing absurd examples, there's a clear trend there.
It's just, it's quite surprising.
That people are able to maintain this view that they're not repeating any particular party line or any particular political viewpoint when they so clearly are.
No, I don't get it either.
Like you say, it's often purportedly not political, yet somehow all of the conspiracy ideas seem to have that.
I'm not totally sure why.
You know, we could speculate about why conspiracy theories really are more prevalent on the right and seem to be used to justify right-wing views far more often.
Obviously, that libertarian thinking has got something to do with it.
You know, that's connected to that sort of fear of some sort of nefarious groups that are out to get you, which arguably, again...
Is something that sits more comfortably on the right?
But I haven't really figured that one out.
Because in principle, as you say, conspiracy theories are not necessarily of any particular flavor, yet it seems like most of the ones that we come across are.
Yeah, that might reflect something about our lands.
Because I think, for example, on the left side, focusing on the cock...
Brothers and their influences is a pretty common trope.
So I don't think either of us is arguing like this doesn't exist on the left.
It's more that the right seems to be ascendant in that sphere.
And maybe a lot of it has to do with Trump.
I mean, the president is a conspiracy theorist.
Yeah, I mean, I'll give you another example, which is the flat-earther community.
Now, they've been around long before Trump.
And it's obviously a crazy conspiracy theory that the world is really flat.
And the idea that it's a globe has just been invented by the authorities to fool us for some reason.
So that, on the face of it, has entirely neutral political violence.
Would you agree, Chris?
Yeah.
Yeah, and yet...
It's completely dominated by, like, I won't go into detail, but all of the conspiracies that are kind of linked to it and also the political ideas.
But just take it from me that it is entirely dominated by right-wing conspiracies.
And I'm not entirely sure why that is.
It just seems to be a general kind of slant.
But it doesn't surprise me at all that this guy J.P. Sears, who is a conspiracist...
Also is a straight-up right-wing as well.
Well, he's not straight-up right-wing, but he's traveling in those spheres.
Or at least he would take issue with being identified as that.
But he is basically...
Yeah, I mean, I don't see why one can't just describe him as being right-wing.
I mean, certainly that kind of extreme libertarian kind of right-wing.
Well, yeah, maybe I'm being too hesitant because I agree that there's an imbalance.
I think it's more that, you know, if people looked at this content, they wouldn't expect that from the kind of new agey...
Alternative medicine side that isn't typically associated with right-wingers.
Yeah, that's right.
But it's just all his opinions happen to be right-wing talking points, that's all.
Yeah, it's just a question.
Okay, so I have this internal spiritual sense that both of us are completely fed up with this guy.
Yes.
And maybe don't want to look at this content again for a significant while.
So maybe it's time to offer our final thoughts in a broad picture.
For me, the notable point here is the overlap between the traditional alternative medicine, New Age spirituality space, and the...
The content, which is more culture wars, IDW, that we've looked at in the past couple of weeks, that I was expecting these to be separate spheres, but there's a lot of overlap, which was unexpected and quite depressing.
The second point is that this use of comedy and parody and having meta-awareness of yourself is like a...
It's a really useful deflection that makes it hard in many respects to criticize someone because you can just be presented as not having a sense of humor or not getting the joke or not detecting the irony.
It's a really useful shield when you want to actually make points and argue for a worldview and make it so that criticism is hard to land on you.
Yeah, I guess my two takeaways were those.
No, those are good reflections, Chris.
So, yeah, look, I think I wasn't quite as surprised as you about that overlap between the spiritual hippy-dippy stuff with that conspiratorial libertarian stuff.
It seems surprising on the surface, but you kind of realize that they do actually have a fair bit of common ground in terms of that focus on that sort of individual.
Liberation and awakening, to use JP's phrase there.
And there are other examples of overlap there.
So that's an interesting phenomenon and not one that I think most people are super aware of.
I did start feeling super tired during this episode, especially when we were enumerating all of those particular COVID-related conspiratorial bullet points because...
It's just so fucking boring.
They just get recycled.
The talking points all get recycled.
They get debunked, but they don't go away.
And in a way, it reflects the writer point that conspiracy theories are really boring because they're all the same.
You could substitute the Flat Earth for the COVID hoax and literally...
Almost all of the talking points about it being a way to control the population and instill fear and create compliance and stuff would all be exactly the same.
So it's kind of boring because you just keep seeing the same stuff again and again.
Yeah, this may be why we decided not to focus on the traditional figures, but he's not exactly a traditional figure because of the online component.
But yeah, maybe closer to that world than...
Than we like.
Yeah, that's right.
So, you know, I think we're actually hoping with this guy to have a bit of a palate cleanser and to step away from culture war, political type stuff.
But unfortunately, he turns out to be right in the middle of it.
Look, I think there are a couple of useful things from thinking about JP.
And it's related to the psychological research, what we know about what makes conspiracy theories attractive to people.
And the first one is the cognitive dimension, which is...
The conspiracy theories are based on that intuitive, instinctive gut feeling.
And then the elaborate theory is a rationalization that supports something you essentially want to believe for emotional reasons.
So the flat earth one is a perfect example.
The earth looks flat.
It doesn't feel like it ought to be round because when you look around, it's flat.
So that's a really simple example of how then...
A great big narrative will be built up.
There are other reasons for wanting to believe.
So that's the cognitive aspect.
And JP is useful because he's really explicit about that.
He explicitly says, you know, trust your intuitions, trust your instincts.
That's how you know what is true.
So he's kind of helpful in that way.
He doesn't hide it.
I think the other aspect of it is where JP is a good illustration of what we already know from The psychological literature is that emotional attraction of conspiracy theories.
So, again, he's really explicit about promoting people's feeling of autonomy.
He's all about providing a sort of externalising source of their anxieties and fears and kind of really taps into that.
And that's a known thing in terms of the psychological characteristics of people who are drawn to conspiracy theories.
They do have issues around autonomy in their own life and they do have a sense of fear or anxiety about bigger, more powerful forces that are interfering with their lives.
So COVID is a perfect...
For conspiracy theorists, a bit like vaccinations because it involves those emotions.
And so JP is following, and COVID theories generally, are following the golden path of conspiracy theories really, which is providing that institutional authoritarian enemy on which to project their fears.
So you deny kind of...
You know, what you need to, but you make the real enemy to be these, you know, powerful institutional authority sources which, you know, need to be fought and resisted by the people who are woke to the conspiracy.
So, yeah, that's my reflection.
It was kind of painful in a way because he is just doing the same thing that all conspiracy theorists do, but on the other hand, he's quite explicit about it, so he's actually useful for illustrating.
How conspiracy theories work.
Yeah, a useful person to cover maybe, but maybe we'll try to steer clear of his neck of the woods for a while.
Yeah.
So I guess that seems like as good a place as any to call this week to a close.
I might note that it's pretty tiring to deal with coronavirus.
Conspiracies and denialism.
So our energy might have got sapped in the kind of second half of the podcast.
So if so, we apologize for that.
But you heard the quote, so you have to give us some leeway.
Yes, this was meant to be a light experience for us, but it turned out to be, yeah.
Heavy and dark.
Heavy and dark.
Yeah.
Oh, well.
Better luck next time.
What are we doing next time?
Well, so for another change of pace, we've been dealing with people that we are not ideologically opposed to necessarily, but certainly not in political agreement, have substantial differences with.
And although most of them identify as left...
It's fair to say they're often classified as leaning to the right.
So we're going to actually do a proper lefty person who, it may be the case that we have substantial points of agreement, but they definitely do fit the bill of a guru-type offering a utopian plan for the future,
and it's Rutger Berman.
Berman?
Bregman.
Bregman, I think.
Yes, there we go.
Good start.
Rick Bregman, who rose to fame from the kind of viral clip calling out people at Davos for not suggesting to raise taxes.
Yeah, so he's written that book, Utopia for Realists, and I see he's got some good talks there on this thesis that the human beings are intrinsically good and kind, which, yeah, is debatable, I think.
Yeah, it'd be fun.
Yeah, which we will definitely.
Definitely take a hard stand again.
That's right.
I mean, Chris, you for one.
You just proved that just by existing.
I'm sorry.
That's right.
That's true.
So yeah, that's the person we're doing next.
We'll put on the Twitter account which specific talk or content that we're looking at.
But it's a proper left-wing person.
Wow.
Something to look forward to.
Yeah, yeah, good, good.
Okay, so what else do we need to say?
We want to give our email address, which I don't know.
Could you tell us the email address?
Yes, and we even got an email there.
So look, it's working.
Decodingthegurusatgmail.com.
That is our email address.
And you can send us feedback there.
And at the minute, it's not exactly overloaded.
So the chances of you getting a response are pretty high.
Okay, so the other thing is our Twitter account, which is guruspod, at guruspod.
You can find us there.
And, yeah, please do jump onto iTunes, give us a review for some reason.
We have lots of people listen to this podcast and hear the very Very high-level ideas.
Matt, you're sounding too sarcastic and genuinely unenthusiastic about getting reviews or our content.
So please step it up, step it up.
You need to sound more enthusiastic, I think.
Yeah.
And, you know, in the meantime, since I listened to all this content, I did...
Post a couple of things.
You know, just reflections on these COVID truthers and conspiracy theorists.
Because, you know, after all, I do research this stuff.
I have thoughts.
I have ideas.
I sometimes want to share them on Twitter.
But a bit of advice for you, Chris.
Did you give your Twitter handle?
No.
Well, my...
Your Twitter handle.
That's a secret, isn't it?
Oh, no.
I can divulge that.
You've divulged it in previous weeks.
If that's a secret, it's a very badly kept one.
Okay, so my Twitter handle, all right, at Arthur C. Dent, like the guy from Hitchhook's Guide to the Galaxy.
And yours is Chris?
C underscore Kavanaugh, like the discreased court justice or allegedly discreased court justice.
Yes, yes.
Before you interrupted me, I was just going to say that I discovered on Twitter that in making these reflections about these COVID truthers and You know, and global warming skeptics and comparing those sorts of conspiracy theories to other ones like flat earthers.
Yeah, that's a good way to attract some negative comments on Twitter, just in case anyone is having trouble having a fight on Twitter or getting people upset.
That's a good way to do it.
Well, that's good to know.
Yeah, I need more random conflicts on Twitter in my life.
