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Oct. 3, 2023 - Decoding the Gurus
02:30:47
Triggernometry's Big Moment: Entering the Guru Galaxy

In modern online ecosystems, attention and download metrics reign supreme. Sadly, the gurus are not immune to these incentives, with even the most successful, *cough* Jordan Peterson *cough*, regularly referencing how many people watched their latest video or how many subscribers they have on their 'brave freethinker' tier.Alongside the attention metrics, you also have the interpersonal networks (and dinner opportunities) that matter so much to the guru-sphere. Celebrity interviews, cross-promotional content and collabs, a PragerU video, a shoutout from Joe Rogan, a long-form discussion with RFK Jnr, dinner and a phone call with Eric Weinstein... such are the untold wonders that await anyone who dares to challenge the 'mainstream' orthodoxy by endorsing some element of the contrarian canon (vaccines are dangerous and public health measures were authoritarian, Biden is terrible/Trump isn't that bad, the mainstream media is afraid to discuss paedophiles, etc.). It's very easy to see the impact of the financial and interpersonal incentives in the guru-sphere but what is not as common is for those involved in the hustle to talk transparently about how it all works. Enter Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, the hosts of Triggernometry. In a recent episode, they lay all of this bare by discussing how Konstantin's viral rhetoric-heavy speech at the Oxford Union (decoded in a previous episode) led to very tangible attention and financial rewards but, perhaps more importantly, the newfound respect of a class of celebrity commentator they had always aspired to belong to. With the encouragement of these intellectual heavyweights they now have BIG plans for a Triggernometry media network!So join us for this refreshing look at the inner workings of the Gurusphere through the hungry eyes of the Triggernometry boys!Also on this episode: some updates on previous gurus (Russell Brand & Ibram X. Kendi), discussion of good(!) alternative media content, personal reflections on what Orwellian governments look like, and the psychology of riding roller coasters. Something for everyone!LinksWhat's Next for TRIGGERnometryOur previous decoding of the Oxford Union speechChris' Twitter thread on Konstantin's origin storySurfing the Discourse: Analysing the Right-Wing Reactions to the Russell Brand Scandal (feat Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, and more!)NY Times: Ibram X. Kendi and the Problem of Celebrity Fund-RaisingRussell Brand accused of rape, sexual assault and emotional abuseBBC: Pat Finucane: A murder with 'collusion at its heart'Why They Hate Jordan Peterson - Konstantin KisinWhy Communism is Even Worse Than Fascism - Konstantin Kisin

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Hello and welcome to Decoding the Gurus, the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer and we try to understand what they're talking about.
I, as always, am Matthew Brown.
With me, as always, is Chris Kavanagh.
I'm too close to the microphone and that's okay.
Are you okay, Chris?
Are you good?
Yeah, you identify as someone.
Who can be close to your microphone.
That is okay, yeah.
Society thinks otherwise, but...
Yeah.
Yes, I'm okay.
I'm okay.
I had a busy weekend celebrating the birth of one of my kids.
So that was enjoyable.
You went to a theme park and you communed with the sea creatures, the aquatic...
Wild life?
See creatures!
Yes, I did, Duffy Duck.
Yeah, I shouldn't throw stones at that glass house, but yeah, I did.
We were at an aquarium with an attached amusement park in Yokohama.
And yeah, that was fun.
I'm not a big scaredy cat, Matt.
I went to the rollercoaster.
I know.
Two times!
Two times.
You did mention that briefly earlier, and we agreed that neither of us are rollercoaster people.
Some people are.
It's not us.
And furthermore, the scariest part of the rollercoaster is not the loop-de-loops and the hurtling through space, but rather it's the going up.
Yeah, the clank, clank, staring into oblivion and that feeling of vertigo.
I hate that.
I won't go on one again.
Actually, what I didn't get a chance to tell you, Chris, the first time I went on one of those scary rides, because you went on a few.
You went on lots of them.
I went on a thing called an octopus, which was radial levers spinning around.
And on the wheels, there are other wheels, and they're also spinning around in random directions, and you sit in the little thing.
And I was quite small, and I went on with my dad.
And about 10 seconds after it started, I just totally lost it.
I was screaming.
I was trying to get out of my seat and look to myself after the thing.
My dad's just holding on to me and laughing.
And every time we went around close to the operator guy...
I was screaming at him to turn it off, making stuff.
The worst bit about that was you were 35 at that.
I will say that whenever I'm feeling nervous about roller coasters and how natural it is to be going at those speeds and slowly inching up the line, the fact that there are...
Or a significant number of young children and small Japanese women who seem perfectly fine.
It does help because you're just like, okay, you know, I'm not saying anything disparaging around, you know, Japanese schoolgirls or whatever.
Just saying that it...
Fortified my spirit to see all those.
You're like a living example of one of the classic studies in social psychology, which obviously has been debunked by now.
But this is the studies of group conformity.
Yeah, people are in the room and you have a whole bunch of confederates who are acting like everything's fine, even though there's like smoke coming in through the doors and flames outside the window.
Oh, I know that.
I can see people so much.
I know they were fine.
They were right and they helped me.
So that was...
That was all good.
But, you know, that's our allotted time for personal banter.
The buzzer is gone.
That's our indulgence for that allowed.
We now have to move on to gurus.
It's mandated.
It's part of the contract that you signed.
So I'm sorry.
But I've got an option for you.
I'm like Morpheus.
And in my hand...
One side is a tasty cupcake, and the other is a rotten banana.
So which would you like to consume first?
I guess I'll go for the cupcake.
Well, that's all right.
So we discussed that.
We wanted to correct an error that was out there in discourse land, a misperception, if you will, whereby we are occasionally mistaken for Mindless automatons, defenders of the orthodoxy,
the men that will stand for any institution, no matter how flawed, as long as it has a mainstream media stamp of approval on it.
How wrong they are, Chris.
How wrong they are.
Yes.
You're all wrong.
Terribly, terribly wrong, Matt.
What errors they've made.
How would you describe it, then?
Well, yes.
How would I describe it?
That's a good question.
I think I would put it that my message in general is be appropriately critical consistently across the media or other sources that you consume.
Whether it be academic studies, some investigative journalism report, or whether it be some mad podcast that you've downloaded.
All of them.
You have to approach them critically, right?
But with a spirit of enjoyment as well.
It depends what you're listening to.
Scott Adams, a bit harder.
But yes, so just consume things with your critical mindset on and that's fine.
It doesn't matter what type of content it is.
I mean, in general, books, articles, whatever it is.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, this came up when you and I were talking about stuff that we liked, and I'd got you onto some history podcasts, which was good.
You're broadening your mind and deepening your understanding of human nature.
And then we were talking about Daniel Larkins, I think it was?
Likens.
Likens, yeah.
Well, I probably corrected you to the wrong pronunciation, but yeah, he's a psychologist who has a podcast, but also produces...
Online courses and statistics and has kind of been active in the open science movement.
Yeah, exactly right.
So that's alternative media, right?
He's got his own independent podcast.
Paul Bloom does a whole bunch of independent work.
Including with Dave Pizarro, another independent podcast alternative media figure from their sister show, The Very Bad Wizards.
Yep.
And you can look at a lot of the stuff in the mainstream media, like the documentaries, if you just take history as an example, on a venue like Netflix, produced by...
Whatever.
The mainstream people who produce history documentaries.
I don't know who they are, but somebody makes them.
National Geographic.
I mean, National Geographic's okay, maybe, but a lot of it is pretty shit.
Obviously, the extreme examples is the, you know, in America they have the History Channel or something.
Oh, ancient aliens.
Ancient aliens, ancient civilizations, whatever that word.
Absolute nonsense.
Atlantis and so on.
On the other hand, you compare that to these podcasts that are made by these just random people, not even historians.
Some of them are historians.
Some of them are indeed historians.
That's true.
Another good example to cite is a young Australian guy called Perun, who I've mentioned before.
Young guy who has been shouted out by lots of very respectable figures for the excellent YouTube video he makes on...
Global affairs and international politics, that kind of thing.
And, you know, the content is often just so much better than stuff that you would find that are made more for the mainstream.
So you and I are not saying don't consume independent content.
Just for heaven's sake, there is so much good stuff out there.
You don't need to have Wormtongue whispering into your ear in the guise of Brett Weinstein.
And he doesn't just mean Scott Adams.
Oh, sorry.
Scott Adams or Brett Weinstein.
Yeah, like history podcasts.
We're not saying you all have to take up history podcasts, you know.
But hardcore history is good.
The rest of history is good.
There's other podcasts.
But there are podcasts that do, you know, like 20-part series on a Celtic tribe in, I don't know, 7th century.
There probably were no Celtic tribes in that region at that time.
But, you know, that's the kind of depth that you can't get elsewhere.
Or, in the case of Daniel Lakin's podcast, they just did an hour and a bit on snobbery in academia and their experiences, like a kind of interesting discussion about that.
That's not really going to come up on Channel 4 or, you know, whatever your equivalent is, a one-hour discussion about this roller niche.
Academic topic.
So, yeah, just to say, like, there's plenty of deep dives.
There's lots of very good alternative media.
We've spoken to a whole bunch of people in it, like CoffeeZilla, conspiracy guys that we just spoke to.
They're independent media.
So the message is not just completely trust everything in the mainstream media, throw away everything in alternative media.
It's stop conspiracy.
Craft alternative media.
Or, like, consume it if you want, but just consume it critically.
That's the message.
Yeah, so...
I think we've clarified things, and I don't mean to be boosting history podcasts all the time.
Listen to whatever you like.
Listen to a physics podcast.
Listen to...
History, physics, the two things math never mentions you.
His range of examples is limitless.
No, you can listen to...
Look, the Always Sunny podcast.
There you go.
That's not physics.
That's a good one.
That's true.
Look, these are just ones that I know.
You can find your own.
You don't need to listen to them.
Is the Foundation podcast mainstream media?
Because it's made by the creators of the show and talks about...
That's mainstream media.
I'm classifying that as mainstream media.
But before we get off this topic, Chris, I've got to...
You know, you were listening to history and you told me...
You blew my mind because you told me that no Christians...
We're sacrificed in the Colosseum.
You shouldn't repeat that.
Because it might not be true.
It's me repeating a factoid that I heard in this podcast.
I believe it's probably true.
You know, it's filtered through.
But yes, let's assume...
Everyone, we don't know whether it's true, but Chris is certain that the people who were saying it seem pretty confident.
That's fair to say, isn't it, Chris?
That's fair to say.
But it might have been my misinterpretation of what they said.
But nonetheless, just imagine there is a fact which is true.
In fact, it could be a different fact.
Use your imagination.
Yeah, so carry on with that caveat.
So I told you a fact.
Whatever it is doesn't matter, and it blew your mind.
Chris, my comment doesn't make sense.
It's just a generic fact.
So we'll try.
Let's see.
What were you going to say?
I was just going to say that blew my mind.
I didn't know that.
This is the kind of thing you could learn, potentially, if it's true.
It's a good illustration, right?
You cannot critically accept second-hand reports of history podcasts, even when they come from the alternative media.
So, look, we've illustrated a whole saga about facts there, and it could still be true.
The fact that it could even be true is astonishing.
Okay, okay, good.
Well, I'm glad we've clarified that.
A lot of people...
Yeah, we can put that to bed.
It'll never come up again.
Emails about the Coliseum to Matt, please.
He's the one that referenced it.
Excellent segment.
Good job, Chris.
Well done, Matt.
We've done that.
We've done that.
But so we have that.
Then that was your tasty cupcake.
The rancid banana is there, Mark.
You got to consume it.
Oh, right.
It was not like one or the other.
I had to have both.
It was just the order.
I got to choose.
Okay.
All right.
Let's have the rancid banana.
Russell Brand.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
Look, we're not going to dwell on this, not because it isn't significant, but just because it's a guru discourse thing.
They've all lined up with their predictable opinions in most places about Russell Brand has been accused of a whole range of crimes as well as misdemeanors, whatever they are, rapes, sexual assaults,
grooming, things which aren't crimes but are just extremely skeevy, grooming a 16-year-old when you're a 30-year-old celebrity and so on.
And he framed this as a mainstream media attack because he's daring to
And then, predictably, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, a range of right-wing bobbleheads came out in support.
Elon Musk came out in support and saying, this all looks very suspicious.
And then you had some other people, some surprising cases, like Megyn Kelly and Candace Owens, I think.
Coming out and saying, actually, there might be something too.
These accusations shouldn't dismiss them.
And Constantine Kissin from Trigonometry wrote an article where he basically lambasted people for deciding the issue based on their tribal thing.
He said, we don't know either way, so people shouldn't be assuming he's guilty and they shouldn't be automatically assuming he's innocent in line with tribal biases.
There's been nose reactions.
And of course, there's been the people outright condemning him and, you know, condemning anybody that associated with him at any time in the past and pointed out a lot of hypocrisy around people claiming to be concerned about women's rights and so on.
But they were happy to appear on stage with this figure when all these rumors were apparently swirling, well known and like kind of an open secret in the industry, so to speak.
Yeah.
Well, I guess you're right.
We covered Russell Brand.
He is up there in the Guru Pantheon.
It would be remiss of us not to mention the significant development in the Russell Brand story arc.
However, I don't think there's very much to say apart from read the Times article and other articles about it.
I mean, the investigative journalism seemed of pretty good quality.
The reports seem credible.
And I think everything apart from that is...
Just commentary, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
So, like, you know, Dispatches was the documentary, which is a quite well-regarded documentary series.
People kind of responded to it as if it's all hearsay.
Nobody's done any proper fact-checking, and that's not the key.
It's like, if you watch the documentary, there are people visiting real crisis centers, there are records that investigative journalists have kind of...
Done their job of laying out evidence and checking from independent sources.
And there will always be elements where people disagree or argue against cases.
And the other mistake that was generally going on was that people were saying, you know, innocent until proven guilty and blah, blah, blah.
But you can take that position that that should be a standard in the court of law, which it should be.
But that doesn't mean that you have to...
Treat every allegation as if it's equally plausible, right?
You cannot issue any opinion until a court has ruled one way or the other, because that's not a standard that people apply consistently.
Just think about all the people talking about this, then their views about Hunter Biden's laptop.
Or something, right?
Like, they don't say, well, let's wait till the court case is finished before we assign any guilt or blame.
That's right.
It's not cancellation to read a pretty good piece of investigative journalism and then to form a private opinion on the matter.
Yeah, Russell Brand is, you know, regardless of any of the accusations or whatever, if they had never came out, like...
He's somebody who has been a public narcissist, a self-declared sex addict, and paraded around for years about his various sexual adventures and all that kind of things.
Plus, on top, he's always been a conspiratorial.
Narcissist, right?
And so none of it, like his reaction, the accusations, all of it, it shouldn't be surprising.
And nor is the claim that now he's been targeted because he's criticizing the mainstream.
Russell Brand has had an anti-establishment thing for quite a long time.
You know, he even had a separate YouTube show called The Truths, which he presented as The True News.
And, you know, if it was a targeted campaign to discredit them, you would imagine they might have started it a couple of years back.
And there are heaps of people who have been called to account, shall we say, for their behavior in this regard.
I haven't been challenging orthodoxies or, you know, the conventional narrative on Ukraine or whatever.
So, that doesn't fit.
So, Chris, what do you think, though, about these?
So, there was, what, demonetization on YouTube?
Oh, right.
And there was a letter to Rumble, I think.
Oh, yeah, that's stupid.
Yeah, give us the gist.
I've forgotten.
Yeah, so YouTube demonetized his channel, which they sometimes do when somebody gets into...
Controversy, right?
And people pointed out that there hasn't been any accusations proven, but they've just taken away his ability to monetize his content.
And it's true.
I think that is a kind of heavy-handed step from YouTube.
But they do this.
And also, Russell Brand, anyway, had tried to move all of his content to Rumble and other platforms beforehand.
But it doesn't mean that, therefore, YouTube being the arbiter.
Of whether somebody can make money or not without clarifying their policy on that.
But it also makes perfect sense because essentially a lot of people are reacting with the concern that this will be another Jimmy Savile or Harvey Weinstein case.
So they don't want to be left holding the serial rapist on their hands.
So that's what they're doing and that makes...
Sense from the point of view of, well, they're independent platforms, they get to the side, and somebody decided.
So that was one thing.
Yeah, so that's right.
And on that thing, like YouTube demonetizes heaps of channels for all kinds of random reasons.
Some fair, some not so fair.
So, like, I think...
If you've got a problem with that, and it's quite reasonable to have a problem with that, maybe just don't start with Russell Brand.
Maybe start with one of the more worthy courses, because it is pretty arbitrary, but Russell Brand isn't exceptional in this regard.
Yeah, they do.
YouTube is incredibly bad about...
Being clear about demonetization and stuff like this.
There were all these controversies in the anime YouTuber world a while back about copyrighted content, which revolved around big media companies making claims against independent content creators and fair use standards and stuff.
But the second part of this controversy was that there was a letter from a representative of the Culture, Media and Sports Committee of the UK.
Government-owned headed paper that went to Rumble and a bunch of other platforms, TikTok and Fing, I think, as well, which basically asked them what they were doing about Russell Brand in the face of this accusation.
They wanted to know, does he still have the ability to make money on these platforms?
They pointed out YouTube has demonetized them, and they wanted an accounting of what's being done.
In response to these allegations and so on.
And Rumble published the letter and basically, I think, took the stance we're not doing anything.
And a lot of people then went on saying, this is Orwellian, the British government trying to shut down through these threatening letters that they're sending out to platforms.
The very definition of censorship.
But my understanding, Chris, is it's not...
That wasn't an official letter from, in capital letters, the government.
It was from an MP.
Well, so this is one of the, like, I did a little bit of research, and the little bit I did, I think, is vastly more than almost everyone commenting on this, because the letter, it was written by an MP,
but it referenced the culture, media, and sports.
A committee that we all know and love and otherwise respect.
No one knows what that committee is, but it was on headed paper and whatnot.
So I went to look what that committee is.
What it is, is let me read the description.
It's a common select committee, right?
So this is our key in British kind of thing.
Welcome to the Cross Party Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
It is our responsibility to scrutinize the work of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its associated public bodies, including the BBC.
We examine government policy, spending and administration on behalf of the electorate and the House of Commons.
You can follow us.
The committee also has a subcommittee to inquire into online harms and disinformation.
Find out more at the CMS subcommittee.
So the subcommittee, it's fascinating.
This Culture, Media and Sports Committee has the ability to generate one subcommittee.
This is one of their powers.
And they generated one about online harms and disinformation.
and they have the ability to create inquiries that consider oral and written evidence on a particular topic.
And they usually result, Matt, in the publication of a report.
That's a surprise.
So, like, what this is, as far as I can make heads or tails of it, is a department which isn't actually the, you know, conservative government body.
It is a committee which issues reports on the activities of a part of government, right?
The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport.
And I checked, and it issues reports which complain mainly about the government not doing what it said it would do.
And it's a cross-party thing, which makes sense then.
And it basically issues reports and sometimes makes recommendations.
That's it.
That's it.
So when the online event happened, they did the usual thing of, I guess, sending out for comments about things.
Do I think they were being heavy-handed and implying that they want the platforms to take action?
Yes.
But is this the British government cracking down to censor and threaten all the online platforms?
You can take the perspective that you shouldn't be sending threatening letters like this, especially if you are going to give the impression that the government...
Is potentially forcing the platform to take action.
And they did do that.
But it isn't an Orwellian government nightmare, right?
And I had this interaction with someone on Twitter who was saying, this is the most Orwellian thing they've ever seen.
I just want to mention.
Whenever I do this or make this position, sometimes people say, well, oh, look, you're just defending the government because you can't imagine the government doing anything wrong, right?
So on the one hand, I'm saying I don't agree that the committee should do this.
But on the second hand, the reason I think this is like a hyperbolic, catastrophic overreaction is because I'm very well aware of what Orwellian overreach.
What government looks like?
Orwellian overreach is things like a government colluding with its military and secret services with paramilitaries to execute civilians during a civil conflict, like, say, happened in Northern Ireland during the travels.
It's things like prohibiting the voice of Republican leaders to be heard on British television for six years during a conflict.
That would be stuff like Orwellian overreach, including things, by the way, like civil rights lawyers who had successfully opposed the government being killed.
And this being a case where there was evidence of collusion.
And even still, in a lot of these cases, there still were eventually inquiries done and results published.
So it's just to say that was the British government.
Doing that.
I'm well aware of it.
And I think that kind of stuff deserves criticism, but also is Orwellian actions by a government.
But they also did publish inquiries and stuff like that.
It's different, Matt.
It's different than living in a totalitarian authoritarian state because they don't publish inquiries into their actions.
I think I follow the argument colluding with paramilitary death squads.
Somewhat Orwellian.
A sternly worded letter to Rumble, which they subsequently laughed off and published.
Not Orwellian.
Yeah, doesn't that tell you something?
It's almost illustrating, actually, that it isn't.
Because if you're a media organization in Russia, and the state media or the secret services come and pay you a visit to warn you of covering a topic, I don't think...
Publishing their letters is going to go down well for you.
So that's all.
So this was something.
But it was just the fact that nobody, so much tweets and inks built around this topic, and so few people just even check what the Culture, Media and Sports Committee is, right?
Like, it's almost like it doesn't matter.
But it does matter if it has power or what its function is.
Okay, well said, well said.
All right, well, that's the story with Russell Brandt.
I told you it was a rancid banana.
But there was one other update on a guru that we covered that we shouldn't overlook.
Okay, yeah.
I know we've spent some time already, but yeah.
So, on Twitter...
And across the internet, many people were happy to see Abram X. Kendi's Center for Anti-Racist Research at Boston University go down in flames or at least enter into significant controversy because it laid off more than half its staff and it doesn't seem to have been very productive.
The research has not been...
As impressive, as claimed.
And yeah, it was profiled across various media sites.
I think there was an article on the New York Times, Ibram X, Kendi, and the problem of celebrity fundraising, and so on.
And I think they're launching an inquiry into...
Potential scandal is that there's kind of very little to show for that in terms of, I guess, intellectual outputs, academic outputs, maybe?
Right, yeah.
So people are using this to illustrate, well, this shows what they've been saying all along, that, like, Kendi is an intellectual lightweight, he's a grifter, you know, he hasn't achieved anything.
And, you know, some Schadenfreude said, if, you know, economic disparities being caused can be labeled as racist, right?
Like, you know, if you take money.
Because, you know, Kendi's whole framework is that anything is classified as either racist or anti-racist.
So he's squandering a huge amount of money.
Is it racist, Chris?
Yeah.
Well, so I think Kendi's one of those people that people often raise whenever they want to say how, you know, terribly biased.
We didn't go hard enough.
Yeah, we didn't trash him.
But I keep pointing out to the people that make this that they're almost always not talking about the content that we looked at.
We explicitly multiple times said he's done X, Y and Z and these are bad, you know, like the article that he read about the anti-racist.
Overwatch unit or whatever it was, right?
We highlighted that that is a bad idea and has dystopian, authoritarian ring to it.
But he wasn't giving those kind of hot takes in the content that we looked at.
And so, yeah, I think part of that delta is, you know, the difference between people following him on Twitter or the culture war feuds, which he does get into, and saying, Well, you know, you said he didn't engage in grievance mongering,
but look what he does all the time on Twitter.
But that's right.
That's because we weren't basing on that.
And we actually expected him to do much worse, to be more like a kind of grievance-filled rage monster in the interview.
But he wasn't.
So, yeah, that's part of the reason for the discrepancy.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
We'll never be able to stop.
Explaining this, Chris, but there's obviously a million different ways in which people can be of good quality or bad quality and the Garometer captures just one specific way in which people can be not good.
So, you know.
I don't really, I don't get the complaint that much because if you had asked me before this event, do I think that Kendi is a good manager of...
Projects and large amounts of funding.
Do I think, you know, he's going to produce stellar output?
I would say I have no freaking idea.
I don't.
Like, if he's managed projects like that before, then probably.
And if he hasn't, then I wouldn't hold out hope.
Because, you know, if you've got a huge amount of money and you're primarily just an academic-style pundit, yeah, I wouldn't anticipate that you're going to Be very effective at running a research center.
So, yeah.
I also wouldn't think, just to give an example, you know, I quite like Steven Pinker, but I wouldn't automatically assume that Pinker could run a multi-million pound project to investigate things.
I don't know.
Maybe he has done that and I'm unaware of it.
But, you know, he's more of a charismatic academic pundit type.
Yeah, your default assumption for an academic being a good manager of large amounts of money should probably be no.
It's not very surprising.
Yeah, look, money, you know, Kendi obviously has got that celebrity status, obviously attracted a large amount of funding based on...
I mean, Jack Dorsey gave him 10 million.
Yeah, so if you're somebody who's writing, you know, viral...
Books that are on the cusp of a big cultural reckoning thing and you have billionaires dropping tens of millions of dollars in your lap.
It's not terribly surprising.
No, but I also think people should factor in was like, did Dorsey, I mean, Dorsey's an idiot, but let's just set that aside for a second.
But like, did Dorsey anticipate that Kendi was going to...
Dramatically change the racial disparities and discrimination in the U.S. through his donation to the center?
Or was Dorsey looking to make a public donation for an anti-racist organization in the wake of the George Floyd events?
And I think Dorsey's not the only one who would be doing that kind of activity.
Yeah, it is not surprising, but it was pointed out to me on Twitter by a guy, Preston Bonds, that were the University of Austin to unceremoniously...
Collapse under the weight of the egos running it, that we would likely mention it on the podcast, and we would.
Also be not surprised.
Yeah, I also won't be surprised when that occurs.
But the one possible difference here, and again, I'm not saying this to argue that, oh, I'm really impressed by Kendi's output in general.
It's just to say that the University of Austin, Claims that it's going to be the institution to completely replace academia, the only bastion in the bleak landscape of academic thought that prioritizes freedom to think and the right to hear opinions that you might disagree with,
and so does, right, to challenge students.
Now, I'm sure Kendi made some extraordinary claims for his organization because of all people's launching projects.
Projects make big claims about what they're going to produce, some database or whatever.
But all the things that I've seen mentioned appear to be the kind of things that you find in academic funding proposals.
We will produce this database which will be able to track racist incidents in a much more fair way than other places.
And that's a different kind of claim in terms of the...
Like scope or the significance than what the University of Austin is claiming.
So it's a possible difference to defend why, just like why one would be likely to grab more attention.
Plus, yes, Barry Weiss, Bogossian, all those people, they're annoying.
Well, yeah, that's right.
I mean, there are countless examples of failed research projects.
I mean, you go to anything funded by DARPA, you know, you could find a lot more than $30 million wasted.
And so that in itself is not the interesting thing, right?
The interesting thing for us is, like you said, the claims and stuff around it and something like that University of Austin scheme and framing is very much on point.
For our show, whereas Kendi's thing, you may hate the idea of sociological, social justice-oriented research center and experience Schadenfreude at it being a colossal waste of money, but it's just not on topic.
I will say one thing that was on topic was that he responded to the criticisms.
You know, he did the classic PR management speak of, you know, we're deeply disappointed that we are forced to and we are doing everything in our power to keep the people that we've just let go, you know, allow them to transition to the next stage in their careers and all this.
But he also classified it as if you're critiquing him and taking enjoyment from this, this speaks to...
Racism.
Yeah, racism or right-wing campaigns against them and stuff.
It is possible to be critical of Kennedy mismanaging the centre without it being a campaign to promote white supremacism in the US.
Yeah, well, in an article in Inside Higher Ed that just came out two days ago, he defended it.
He defends his decision to take the long view for Carr, especially when racial and social justice organizations are under attack, adding that, yes, we made missteps, but leaders of color and women tend to face heightened scrutiny.
So he's hinting there.
Yeah.
That's a bit of a, yeah, that's a guru move, isn't it?
It is a guru move.
So just highlighting that.
So, yes, the Carr Institute will continue.
And let's see what happens in the years to come.
But just to be clear, I don't hold out any, you know, they're not waiting on bated breath for their next exciting article to come out.
Like, I don't care.
And the attention that Kendi does get from, you know, the right-wing ecosystem, like, they both feed.
On each other.
So, yeah.
But that's the thing.
I hesitate to even read too much into what he's saying there because it's like two sides of the same coin, right?
On one hand, he plays that card, which is, you know, people are just waiting for us to fail or setting us up to fail and, you know, putting us under this heightened scrutiny.
But they are under heightened scrutiny.
And, you know, it is.
So, yeah, screw them all.
I'm not interested.
It's cultural and political stuff.
Well, Rancid, Banana in general, the whole thing, the smorgasbord, Russell Brand, well, obviously, just to highlight, I don't want to put an equivalence there between the sexual assault and rape allegations.
I'm just saying they're in the same category of bad developments for previous people that we've covered, but yeah, I just realized I was classifying them as the same.
But that's not really fair.
That's not fair.
No.
Differing degrees of rancidness.
Yes.
All right.
We'll leave it at that.
I think that's enough of an unpleasant fruit for people they've been forced to consume.
So we'll get the more unpleasantness next time.
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm sure the main episode will be a palate cleanser after that.
Or will it?
That's right.
Or will it?
Yeah.
So what are we here for today, Matt?
Well.
We're here for a decoding of sorts.
It's not an interview.
We're going to look at some content.
This content is from Trigonometry with Constantine Kissin and Francis Foster.
That's correct, isn't it?
I think his name is Francis, yes.
Yes, okay.
So, yes, they did an episode about what's next for Trigonometry.
This was a couple of weeks ago now, but the reason we're going to cover it here is not because we really thought that we need to get into the deep philosophy of Francis and Constantine and their approach to things, but rather that this episode illustrates something which we are sometimes accused of ignoring,
which is the kind of ecosystems, media ecosystems, which surround the secular guru content that we look at.
And the dynamics that are at play there.
We debated a little bit about whether or not this warranted a full episode because...
It is a little bit light.
But on the other hand, our other options would have involved quite a bit of work.
So that probably did steer us a little bit more to this one.
It's a shorter piece of content.
You mean the other people that we might have covered this week?
Yeah.
So that's true.
They would have took more time.
So there's that reason, which is a good reason to cover it.
But it also does illustrate, as you said, the priorities and the incentives behind the alternative media system.
And it also is, I guess, something...
Like a manifesto, a statement of their philosophy and priorities and goals, which is interesting to hear.
Yeah, it is.
I suppose it is that, isn't it?
Well, anyway, consider this a second part because we covered Constantine's Oxford Union speech, his viral Oxford Union speech, and this is very much an episode focused.
On the earth-shadowing impact of that speech.
And our analysis of that speech was that it was extremely soft.
The rhetoric was very strong, but the content was very light.
But that is not how Constantine frames it here.
So I would encourage people, if they want to see our take on that particular content afterwards, we have an episode which is just about the speech and the persuasiveness of the arguments presented therein.
Yes, it's a bit of helpful context to this, but it was a very big deal for Konstantin and Francis.
Yeah, so let's start off with the framing of this episode.
Actually, it turns out trigonometry was a little bit of problems.
People didn't know this, but here's them highlighting.
Today, we're celebrating the fact that we've just hit 600,000 subscribers on YouTube.
And of course, it's been an incredible first half of the year, Francis, hasn't it?
It has been an incredible first half of the year.
It has been, I think, what is euphemistically called a journey.
It has been a journey, mate.
Well, I mean, one of the things people won't know from behind the scenes, but actually, at the end of last year, the end of 2022, we were having kind of a rough time of it.
Oh yeah, we were having a really rough time with it.
I mean, we were rapidly running out of money.
We were.
Well, what happened was we had to leave our previous studio, as is our nature.
Yeah.
And we decided to use that as an opportunity to build a proper studio from the ground up, which is where we're sitting now.
And we ramped up our studio cost by about 400%.
Yeah.
And then immediately got COVID and couldn't work for a month, basically, towards the end of last year.
So as we were breaking up for the Christmas period, I was sort of looking at the accounts going, this is actually really, really difficult.
And we had to cut the two of ours' salaries, which are not huge anyway, Anton as well.
And then we came back and we were like, we're really going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat here.
Yep.
Yeah, so times were tough for them financially.
And Chris, I imagine it is a tough gig, isn't it?
It would be just as hard as being a comedian or something to be like, this is your job.
You're an independent content creator.
You don't have some day job to go to.
This is how you make your living.
Yeah, I think this is a thing that's worth emphasizing here.
And it's probably obvious, but like just to say, you know, you talked about it on the interview we did with the conspiracy guys, but a lot of the people that, Have podcast shows or YouTube shows.
They're independent creators and that's their main job.
So in cases when they become successful, they end up supporting little staffs or big staffs in some cases.
So yeah, it's just worth bearing that in mind that then things like subscriber numbers and so on, that becomes a concern because that's how you're able to generate income.
And if you are doing This in the way that you and I are, for example, then we don't really have the same concerns, right?
We're not supporting anybody's pension or anything like that.
So yeah, just the struggles of being an independent content creator.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, applies as much to CoffeeZilla as it does to trigonometry.
So anyway, that was the trouble.
But you can see there a kind of focus.
On metrics, right?
That's what is of concern.
And they mentioned their goal in this regard.
When we sat down at the beginning of the year, Laura, who's our chief operating officer now, basically runs everything.
We had a planning meeting.
We were like, well, wouldn't it be amazing if we could get to 500,000 subscribers this year?
That was our stretch goal.
That was our stretch goal because we were like, we're probably not going to make it.
No.
But that would be great because that would represent...
Nearly doubling the size of the channel in a year, which is a huge achievement.
Absolutely it is.
And that is what we were talking about.
And that was the big pie in the sky, the stretch goal.
And I think it's fair to say we've exceeded the stretch goal.
Well, we're on 600,000 now.
Yeah, as we're going to hear, it was largely a result of that Oxford Union speech, right?
Yeah.
So there's been an explosive...
Growth in the content.
They smashed their goals.
I was actually surprised they're sub a million because I thought their YouTube channel was bigger than that.
I watch this YouTube channel, LegalEagle, who does legal breakdowns.
And he's like three and a half million.
Or abroad in Japan, this Japan expat channel, I think it's like two million or something.
So these are probably really big YouTubers that I've been unfair in comparing.
But I'm just saying.
I actually thought they had more than that.
So in any case, the Oxford Union speech, this is the introduction to the role it played.
But...
I mean, talking about the rabbit out of the hat, the Oxford speech was the ultimate rabbit out of the hat.
Well, for a start, it made a shit ton of money.
That was the biggest thing.
It's like we could actually afford to pay everyone a salary, which was a relief.
Yeah, it was.
It was, because it gets a bit awkward and you're going to people and you're going, you know that work you've done, which has been outstanding.
Yeah, well, not in every case.
Not in every case, but in the majority of cases.
Yeah, how about exposure?
Would you like to get paid for exposure, that old classic?
We're not in the comedy industry now, right?
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, so what was it like for you to see that speech?
So again, the discussion of the financial impact that that had, the welcome one, and again, completely understandable.
Like we said, this is essentially a small business.
I gotta say, Matt, maybe this is just my failure of imagination, but when I saw the Oxford Union speech and it went viral and all that, I mainly saw it on Twitter, right?
So I wasn't, I actually wasn't thinking about the...
Potential monetary benefit of it.
It genuinely didn't factor.
And I know that Constantine wanted to go viral and promoted and stuff.
But I was thinking more of the attention metrics.
But they say 16,000, which presumably is from their channel, the clip that they host of that on YouTube.
So if you just make a little viral culture war outrage video.
I guess this is why all these people are doing this.
Yeah, I think so.
I didn't know either.
I don't understand how it all works, but just checking here.
Actually, the original video, Constantine Kiss and Work Culture Has Gone Too Far at the Oxford Union, that's on the Oxford Union account.
Yeah, so that's what I thought, but obviously they've...
Re-hosted bits of it or, you know, there's bounty of being like, maybe they played clips of it and stuck it up on their channel because they said they got like 16 grand from video content and you would imagine that has to be from their content.
The union isn't going to be sending them dividends.
No, no.
So yeah, I don't really understand that.
But look, as you know, Chris, before I...
Came back to academia, I was working in small business myself and helping run one.
And, you know, it's your absolute number one priority, which is paying the bills, making money and being able to pay your own salary and other people's salaries and the rent.
So I think it's very natural for them to be ultra-focused on revenue and the attention metrics are really just, you know, it's just a pathway to more revenue, right?
Yeah, I think here's another clip that underscores this point.
It was a big relief because I think when we put that clip out on our channel, it generated about £16,000, which meant that actually, as I say, first of all, our financial problems were sort of taken care of.
And then you just saw this video get 5.5 million views on the channel, bringing a huge number of subscribers.
So for me, first of all, it's just...
One of the two people leading this, it was just a big weight off our shoulders more than anything.
And really, beyond, you know, I went on Tucker again, I did Question Time again, I had some, in the immediate aftermath, some opportunities that I'd had before, but again, big ones.
You went on JBP's pod?
I did, yeah.
Like you said, you got the metrics, you got the finance.
You've also got the additional attention from other culture war figures, right?
Tucker.
Important players, right?
The network of personal connections among the various influencers and media personalities is crucially important.
Everyone's aware of how big everyone is, and that determines how important they are in the network.
So this immediately elevated Konstantin.
Not so much Francis, which I'll talk about.
But it immediately elevated him to the level of playing with the big boys.
Yeah, and there's also some cringy parts of this, but Constantine is talking about when the significance of the event started to dawn on him.
And again, the event being him giving this Oxford Union speech and getting attention.
He says this.
But really, not much.
Had changed in my day-to-day life because I don't live in a big city.
Most of them, I'm a very boring guy.
When I'm not in here working, I'm at home with my family going for walks in the local park or whatever.
And so the only thing I noticed is I said to my wife, like, you know, when I used to go out in the small town that we live, I'd maybe get recognized once a week.
Yeah.
Now, I said, Joe, I'm sort of starting to get recognized every day.
But, you know, one person recognizes you when you go for work.
It's not a big deal.
Someone says, oh, I love your show or whatever.
And really, it wasn't until we went back to the US that I started to gather the significance of what had happened.
So he was keeping it real when he was in the UK.
There's this thing about the attention economy.
He basically describes it there.
I went from someone that maybe got recognized once a week.
It started to happen once a day.
But I didn't appreciate the significance of my viral speech until I went back to the US.
And we're going to hear what happens in the US.
You know, one way to put it is that Konstantin is refreshingly frank about how he feels about it.
But it is...
I don't know.
Yeah, it's usually not the kind of thing people would...
It is the kind of thing gurus do, right?
Like, Jordan Peterson will always talk about how many views his video gets, how many subscribers he has.
And very often, all the different types of gurus we cover, they do this.
They highlight how many people watch their videos, how many people subscribe.
So in that respect, this is very typical.
We've talked a few times about how people like Brett and Eric, for instance, are just fixated on their metrics.
They clearly monitor them on a daily basis.
And at least for them having these conspiracy theories when their metrics aren't trending upwards in the way that they expect.
So yeah, that's notable.
That is consistent.
Yeah, and so I will also say, Matt, just before we get off this point, that it had an impact on finances, had an impact on subscribers, also had an impact on book sales, something else you might not have considered.
For the show, because we pretty much, I don't know, we would have got 550,000, 200,000 subscribers.
From the speech itself and then the follow-up hits that I did on various podcasts and TV and stuff like that.
But also for me, it really changed how I think I see what I'm doing and how other people see what I'm doing.
My book, I think, doubled sales in a week or something.
That's amazing.
I didn't realise that.
Yeah, it did really well, particularly on the audiobook because people wanted to hear, literally hear from the person that they'd heard.
So yeah, it was transformative.
Yeah.
So for Konstantin, it comes through, I think, in what he's saying that those various metrics, they are the real proof.
That is the gold-plated proof that you are doing the right thing.
You're doing something good.
You're doing something worthwhile and something meaningful.
So that's kind of a theme that goes on throughout the discussion.
This is validation of what they're doing.
Yeah.
And like you said, the refreshing thing about this is...
Kind of how open and direct that Constantine and Francis are in discussing this.
So here's Constantine reflecting on, you know, his insecurities and what the speech kind of delivered for him.
It took a lot of pressure off me, actually.
Really?
So it took some, you know, the truth is that I know that in the British context this might sound arrogant, but it is true.
Ever since I was a little kid, I always felt the...
I always had this weight on my shoulders.
I felt that I was supposed to do something special.
And all my life, I never...
I was always good at the things I did when I ran my translation business.
When I did comedy, I was good at comedy, but I never felt that I'd really slotted in.
You found your thing.
I never felt that I'd found my thing.
And with trigonometry, I always did feel like I'd found my thing, but it was kind of like having to prove it.
To the outside world.
And I think what changed for me with the Oxford speech, it was like, I've proved it now.
And the way that I feel now is like, I have so much left to do, but I have nothing left to prove.
That's an amazing place to be.
And it's such a relief.
It's a real relief.
And it shows up in the way that I am with other people, in the way that I am with my family, in what kind of friend or husband or everything I am.
It's really allowed me to just...
Take that go, go, go, you know, thing off me and I'm free to be very driven and passionate as I always have been, but without having this extraordinary feeling of like I'm supposed to be something and I'm not.
Yeah, once again, Chris, refreshingly frank.
I hate to over-psychologize this, but I think it does perhaps speak to a bit of a sense of insecurity, like just in Constantin's own words, that he had...
felt throughout his career up until this point and that this viral moment has finally taken that weight off his shoulders and proven to him that like he is doing something worthwhile and I think it speaks to the effects that those metrics
have and the ultimate barometer by which a public influencer basically measures their
It's insane, Matt.
It's insane.
He's not talking about publishing his magnum opus.
For, you know, his life work and something that he's poured his heart and soul into.
He's talking about, what was it, six to ten minute or six minute, like super polemical, hugely rhetoric speech given at the Oxford Union.
And yes, it received like a very receptive round of applause from partisan culture war people because it was red meat.
But, you know, if that is the thing that now you can rest your soul easy, Because that's what you've contributed.
Now you've shown the measure of what you are.
Like, fucking hell.
I'm sorry.
I know this is mean.
But Jesus Christ.
I think that's insane.
I guess it is the influencer mindset.
But it's just like, I produced a piece of culture war drama, culture war viral content.
And that's my...
You know, now I can be relaxed around my family.
It is a pattern that we've seen with other gurus like Brett Weinstein, I think.
His career maybe didn't tick any of the boxes for them.
They had very high expectations for themselves.
They took a great deal of stock in their own ability to make an earth-shattering contribution to the world.
And it comes through that they didn't quite feel it.
And then this path is a way of satisfying that need.
I mean, he says in that clip that I have so much left to do, but I have nothing left to prove.
On the back of the Oxford Junior speech.
Now, I guess, okay, like trying to extend my charitable hat here.
Maybe he is focusing more.
On his insecurity, that that monkey is off his back, right?
But I'm just, it's sort of amazing that you could get that off your back by producing polemical content and people leading it up.
But you know, Chris, five million downloads.
I think that's the key thing, right?
That's the unfakeable signal that you've done something special.
Yeah, they talked about it opening the doors and let's see who was there to welcome them into the big leagues.
And then when we got to America, I suddenly realized that, like, all the people that we'd been in touch with previously because they were guests of the show or we had been guests on their show, whatever, they treated me very differently now.
And it was kind of eye-opening, really.
So that trip to America really changed everything for me because, you know, we arrived there and basically I was like, all my heroes are there saying, you know, welcome, brother.
Yeah.
Come and join us.
It was almost an initiation into a world that I'd always aspired to be part of.
The thing that really summed it up for me was when I went on Bill Maher's show, Eric Weinstein, he was a guy that we'd been dreaming of having on the show for ages.
So much respect for him.
Fascinating guy.
He asked to come and be my guest with his wife and a friend of hers.
In the green room of Bill Maher.
Whereas to me, I would have been honoured to have a coffee with Eric up until that point.
We used to speak every now and again on the phone, but it was just amazing.
So it changed a lot, I think.
There you go, Chris.
Five million downloads and Eric Weinstein is treating you like you're a player.
Well, just on the Eric point, so Eric, who before they've been begging to get him on the podcast, he's a little hard, he'd been friendly, but, you know, maybe not making the time.
Constantine's welcome from Eric to take him as his plus one with Eric's wife and a friend to Bill Maher's green room.
It's just so Eric.
It's so Eric.
I think the really interesting point for me there is not about Constantine at all, but actually...
The reception.
Yeah, the reception, how that works.
And I believe him.
It was totally transformed in their eyes because the way they evaluate each other and status in that group is just totally about that kind of viral impact and how much of a replay you are.
And suddenly he had entered the big leagues and now he was someone worth talking to.
This is the, you know, the dinner, the IDW dinner problem that so many of them have.
You know what he's describing?
He describes it as an initiation.
Into a world I'd always aspired to be a part of.
With figures.
Towering figures like Eric Weinstein.
Finally!
I was able to sit down and pick his fantastic mind.
But that is the thing that we often criticize about.
That there's so much focus placed on this interpersonal, backdoor, relationship-y stuff that goes on amongst the guru set.
And what Constantine is detailing is, That happens.
It's great.
Now I'm being treated like a brawler by these people.
But it totally happens not because he's got the right politics or he's written a book that they've all found totally fascinating.
It's happened because his download metrics have reached a threshold where he's worth taking notice of.
I think that's a really important point in terms of how the game is played in that network.
Yeah, although I think the reason...
His reception was so positive and it got the downloads was because of the partisan content.
Oh, because of the politics.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
If you had a viral speaking truth power by the Me Too man in Hollywood, you're not going to be welcomed by Eric and Bill Maher and stuff.
Good clarification.
You're completely right.
A bit more.
On this entering the big leagues and the change of mindset that it's generating.
Because I think, Matt, this is again, it's like Constantine in a way, James Lindsay did this episode that we never covered, where he talked about his road to Damascus moment, where he basically completely decided that he needed to change and be more extreme and so on.
And he just...
Explains it.
He just openly talks about these people are being nicer to me.
And I was, you know, at first I was wary.
And then I realized, no, but they really like me.
And so on.
And so Constantine, he's from the UK and is talking about the difference in culture that we've talked on as well about, you know, people who big up and want to support people and the tall puppy.
Syndrome, which predominates in UK, Ireland, Australia, this kind of thing.
So listen to some of these reflections.
So that feeling of relief, I imagine, is just a sense of calm and peace that it brings.
It is.
And also, when we went to the US, we met all these incredible people.
And the mindset over there, we talk about all the time, has got downsides, of course.
Of course it does.
I used to think the sky's the limit.
Now I just think there is no limit.
I'm just like, what can we do?
How can we be more of ourselves?
How can we create amazing content?
How can we make a positive impact on the world?
I'm not embarrassed or shy anymore about having big dreams and big aspirations for what we're building here.
And I just feel like we put ourselves on the map.
Yeah.
This year in a way that I think in the past we just felt like we were trying to.
Yeah.
Now I just feel like there's no limit.
And the thing is, I know it's not a delusional thing because I meet all these people who are hugely successful, who I respect, who we look up to, who tell us that.
They look at what we've built here and they go, there is no limit.
And so to me, this is all upside, all opportunity from here on in.
Once again, I want to congratulate and thank Constantine for his frankness, Chris.
But it is incredibly revealing.
Like, a lot of the time, the behaviour of the various influences can be characterised as very calculating, sort of Machiavellian stuff.
But, like you said with James Lindsay and now with Constantine Kisson, a lot of the time they speak to their personal insecurities and a kind of vulnerability.
Almost just a great sense of emotional relief at the sense of being accepted, at being respected, and finally having been seen as someone who's accomplished something by people that matter.
And that's what Konstantin is relating to here.
And I think that those emotional drivers are as important as any other ones.
Yeah.
And again, I'm going to return to this point repeatedly.
Talking about.
The sky's the limit.
Because I had a viral culture war meme hit the content that we're going to put out that's going to help the world.
Like, what's on their channel?
Interviews with Bjorn Lomborg, Matthew Goodwin, Nigel Farage, Ben Shapiro, Dan Crenshaw, Dan Schellenberger, or Michael Schellenberger, sorry, Lawrence Fox.
It's just...
It's pure culture war.
They're an interview show who do long-form interviews with culture war figures.
Occasionally, they might do something with a non-celebrity, non-culture war figure, or have on a guest which is against type, but go to their channel.
And it's just a deluge of absolutely predictable culture war content.
So that framing that we're going to contribute to the world in a positive way.
Really?
Does it perhaps involve a nuller interview with Nigel Farage?
That would be the sixth one on the channel.
Yeah, it's impressive, I guess, how much self-belief they have in their power to impact culture in a positive way.
But again, that's the pattern we see with a lot of the gurus like Brett Weinstein, which is one taking what seems like a relatively small thing as a massive accomplishment.
And the other aspect is portraying what they're doing as being on a mission to save the world.
The highest possible motives.
Yeah, and like you said, is that really accomplished by interviewing Nigel Farage six times, five times, or whatever it is?
Yeah, they've all got their own narratives, but it does seem out of step with reality.
Yeah, and you know, when it comes to the big plans and that kind of thing, here's a clip talking to that.
You know, people can already see that we are slowly starting to expand the range of what we do here.
So in addition to interviews, you and I put out pieces to camera regularly.
We've got other creators who will be coming through under our umbrella over time.
And, you know, we are going from a YouTube show and podcast to a media organization, a new media organization.
And people are going to see some very big changes here over the next six months, which is obviously very exciting.
They've got big plans.
This is a lot, isn't it?
That's transforming from an interview, a Culture War podcast, to becoming a media platform.
This has really been a shot in the arm for them.
Yeah, it's amazing how much this Oxford speech has done.
But you know what?
They're talking about switching from the focus being solely on them and their YouTube slash podcast series to a franchise of sorts, or some sort of umbrella.
Term where presumably you would have other people under the Trigonometry brand.
And given the standards that we've come to experience with the Trigonometry main podcast and YouTube series, I can only dream of what that content will look like.
But I guess they're envisioning a kind of daily wire, except for people still claiming to be centrists.
Right.
Yeah, that'll be interesting to see how that goes.
Yeah, so sticking a bit, Matt, in terms of the influences around them and how they're impacting on them, they are supported by the best people.
I don't have time for it anymore, man.
And we are surrounded, the beauty of the work that we do is we're surrounded by incredible people.
We've become very good friends with Winston Marshall over the last couple of years, and he's such a great guy, and so many others.
So many other people that we...
Terrible taste in glasses.
In glasses?
Yeah.
I'm joking, Winnie.
What's wrong with those glasses?
It's got the kind of...
It just reminds me of my dad's in the 80s.
I'm sorry, Win.
But no, you're right.
You're right.
Legendary comedic banter there, Matt, by the way.
Just had to include that.
So, surrounded by all the best people.
The example they give there, Winston Marshall.
Does that name ring a bell, Matt?
I've got a feeling it won't.
No, no.
Who is he?
That would be the member of Mumford& Sons who left because of various controversies over...
He wrote tweets promoting Andy Ngo's book and then ended up kind of getting semi-canceled and leaving the band.
And then he went on...
Barry Weiss's podcast and cried about it.
And now he has his own podcast.
Oh, yeah.
The Martial Matters podcast hosted by The Spectator magazine.
Oh, yes.
And so there, Matt, the Martial Matters podcast.
So just have a little look there at the recent episodes.
What do you see?
You see Youngmeet Park?
The North Korean dissident, Lee Fang, Michael Schellenberger, Niall Ferguson, Peter Boghossian, Louise Perry.
These are all names that will be completely unknown, right?
Another groundbreaking...
We're completely random guests.
So this guy, Marshall, is also making the world a better place by talking to long-form interviews with the same set of cultural figures.
Yeah, well, good on them.
The world's going to be fixed shortly, I think, with so many people lending a hand.
Yeah, the good thing is that they've all got these very different ideas.
It's not just people taking the same model and monetizing it.
It's just all different angles.
That guy's a musician.
They were comedians, you know.
So there you go.
There's the difference.
Well, it takes a lot of courage to talk to people with different opinions.
They talk about that a bit later on.
Yes, I do have a clip that specifically speaks to the importance of what they're doing.
Like why maybe we are finding it hard to understand what's so important.
Here's the way that they see.
One of the things that I have to say I'm incredibly proud and excited about is some of the recent guests and the guests that we've got coming up.
You know, we have got everybody from Nigel Farage through to Mark Steele, who's a lefty firebrand comedian, to Aaron Bastani, the founder of hyper-lefty media organization, Navarra Media.
And this is what we set out to do when we started.
Yes, we have our own points of view.
Yes, we're not pretending to not have them, but we want to speak to everybody.
We want to hear people's views from different sides of the political spectrum.
And there's not many places that you're going to get that variety of conversation.
What people think of, Matt, when they think of trigonometry is balanced, nonpartisan content from a wide array of opinions and voices, certainly no skew in their content.
You're just as likely to see lefties on there complaining about some element of the left as you are right-wing people complaining about another element of the left.
Not at all an anti-woke podcast.
No, no, no, no, no.
And just, you know, even let's not consider the anti-woke thing on COVID, Matt, recently.
Consider that they've had on the...
Independent journalist, I'm doing air quotations if you want, Rav Avora, the young guy with no relevant expertise, who talked about the title they put on the video.
Watch this before you give your kids the vaccine.
Dr. John Campbell, risk-benefit analysis.
He helpfully provided that.
Curtis Jarvin, the right-wing blogger.
How a bad idea led to COVID.
This was tying in the lab leg.
And Jay Bhattacharya, it's strange.
There's such a diversity.
They're not afraid to challenge their audience.
And the crazy thing is, even if they balanced, in scare quotes, each and every one of those absolutely terrible, insane figures peddling misinformation with reputable scientists with actual expertise in the field.
Which they don't, right?
No, they don't.
But they do on occasion have like random counter people like Richard Knockens or something.
But the point is on that specific issue, COVID, they don't.
But even if they did, that would still be terrible.
It's not a good idea to have one guest on who is a reputable scientist talking sense and then having absolute batshit crazy next on for balance to hear both sides.
That's stupid to begin with.
The second thing is that it's not balanced, right?
It's 95% lunatic.
Conspiracist, anti-government, anti-everything people.
Yeah, well, we'll hear them talk about this a bit more, Matt.
So the new media organization are pioneering what kind of content?
I think that in terms of pioneering a new media organization that is going to have a range of voices on it that you might agree with or you might disagree with, but they've got to be heard and they've got to be discussed in an open and honest way.
We're really, really plotting quite a unique course, I feel.
And that's something I think we should be very proud of.
Absolutely we should.
And, you know, this is the thing as well.
There are interviews that we know are going to get more views.
You just know that.
You know that if you bring, and I love him to pieces, he's one of our finest interviewees, he's a brilliant mind, he's great fun, Douglas Murray.
If we bring Douglas Murray on, we know it's going to crush.
On every platform, it's going to be amazing.
He's a star.
He's a star.
But...
You know, Douglas Murray, just regardless of whether you're partisan or whatever, he's a star, right?
Like, every audience that is fair-minded will react to him the same.
It wouldn't signal that you have a right-leaning audience of Douglas Murray.
It's your go-to example.
I think as well as that, Chris, it reveals the strong incentives.
This is a setup to a framing that what they care about is to talk about the real issues and have people on that are going to, you know...
Make the world better and help people and so on.
But there's this long extended framing about how if they got Douglas Murray on, then the downloads would crush because he's a star and obviously that would just be fantastic, like so great for us.
And this in the context of talking so much about how happy they are with their metrics and the new income and so on.
Come on.
Whether they admit it to themselves or not, clearly this is one of the biggest priorities in terms of...
Which guests they're booking and the editorial line that they take.
No, no, no, Matt.
How dare you?
That's not their priority.
Because I, and neither do you, want to be one of these platforms where we just talk to people that we agree with.
Because number one, and the most important thing about it, it's just boring.
Yeah.
If you cannot sit down and have a conversation, be friends, have a relationship with someone that you disagree with, then you're a child.
And it really is that simple.
And I don't understand why we don't talk about this more.
Yeah.
Well, I think we've found ourselves in a very, very locked-in world where, look, it's very gratifying, isn't it, to just hear your opinion regurgitated back to you.
And this echo chamber thing, it exists for a reason.
It's good that they have not fallen to that, you know, that they...
So regularly are engaging with people that strongly challenge their positions.
And also, Matt, that point that we don't talk about this issue enough.
Heterodox podcasts are not talking enough about how they are able to...
Have the difficult conversations and speak to people across the aisle.
Yeah, you're right.
Nobody ever mentions that.
It's in the title of like fucking 21 casts.
Just that notion.
They would point to stuff like, look, we talked to the host of Novara Media or we talked to Destiny.
And one, Matt, if you were to quantify it, you would find that these things where you actually have a left-wing...
But even if you ignore that, if you look at the stuff that they talk about in almost all occasions, with a few exceptions, it's very much focusing on elements that they can agree with and then pushing back against the people on stuff that they know will generate some controversy.
Like have Sam Harris on, talk about stuff you agree on, then talk about some issues where it's going to cause And you don't even have to be the one really strongly pushing back because you can just be presenting other people will say.
They recently had Neil deGrasse Tyson on.
And obviously he's going to say a bunch of stuff that will annoy their audience about COVID or science or whatever.
But that's good for them.
And they would frame that as, well, that's us having these difficult conversations.
But as you can see, like on COVID, where...
Or the figures where they're just having people on putting the contrarians on blast.
They don't have that.
The interviews with the contrarians are incredible.
The softball question throughout, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's almost become...
Like a joke.
Well, I mean, I'm sure people have parodied this, just the incredible self-congratulation of the heterodox fear in terms of being robust and being able to have these difficult conversations and really discuss the big ideas and, you know, to get outside of our ideological bubbles, the kinds of things that everyone else is just too afraid to do.
We're such special people.
Like half the episode is then patting themselves on the back, one for their metrics.
And the other half is patting themselves on the back for being so damn courageous.
Yeah, and non-partisan.
That's the immediate thing you get from their channel when you go and look there.
And they make this point very clearly, Matt.
I think that's, again, another of the reasons for how far we've been able to come and how far we're going to go.
Because we are going to retain that attitude always.
We are not going to...
I get locked into a particular worldview on a side, which makes it difficult sometimes.
I think we all know that if we pick the team and started batting for that team, we'd probably be further along in terms of numbers and revenues and whatever.
Oh, yeah.
I don't think you can be successful being truly successful, being something that you're not.
Niger 526, sixth appearance.
Coming up soon.
That's just as to mention.
Chris, I think a fun little project in research would be to use GPT-4 or something, to just do a straight up text analysis of all of the comments, of all of the people that follow them, all the people that comment on the YouTube videos, which are all uniformly positive, by the way.
And from that, quantify the slant, right?
Quantify the tribe, for want of a better word.
That their audience fits into.
And I think if you did that research, I think we could show quantitatively that they have picked a side, that their audience is of a very particular bent, and they are speaking directly to that audience.
They do not have an audience from across the political spectrum.
Yes.
I think what they are probably referencing is they don't have as partisan an audience as Steve Rubin.
Or Scott Adams.
They're probably to the more center of outright partisans.
But they are people that are very favorably disposed to Sebastian Gorka, Nigel Farage.
And they would say, we do that in spite of the political disagreements we have.
But where are the woke liberal people to balance those polemical right-wing figures?
That's right.
I mean, to emphasize, they're not some far-right fringe position.
They sit where they are.
But the point is that they are framing it that they are sort of losing audience by talking to Nigel Farage again.
That there are people, you know, a significant portion of their audience unsubscribing in anger because they're so upset by hearing these conservative opinions and Nigel Farage getting softball questions.
No.
I don't think that's true, right?
Well, I think they would kind of frame it the other way, that despite their audience, they speak to destiny or they're not afraid of the Novara.
But yes, they are also framing the controversial right-wing politicians.
They must be heard as well.
But like, yeah, come on, who's for?
But I think they are honestly saying what they believe about themselves, which is, it's truly...
Impressive.
And in terms of how other people live in comparison to the promised land that is trigonometry, there's a big contrast.
When you are on the comedy circuit and your livelihood depends on people in the industry liking you, in a very punitive industry where, if you have the wrong opinion, people will...
Ban you from clubs or not book you or whatever.
We had to really watch our steps all the time.
And it creates this kind of eggshell walking experience.
It's the worst thing.
It's not the worst thing, of course, but it's really, really terrible.
It's a terrible way to live your life.
And it's how most people live.
And it's why this show is so successful.
It's because we don't live like that.
And when we have conversations which are open and honest, which we say what we think and we feel, That's, for people, that's revolutionary because most people in their lives, both in their professional and their private lives, walk on eggshells.
I get people messaging me going, oh, I really admire your bravery.
I'm like, what?
And they're like, yeah, I couldn't say that.
He talks a little bit later on about how most people live lives of quiet desperation.
Yeah, yeah.
The self-censorship that you and I, we do all the time, obviously.
We're used to it.
We're hardened to it.
Yeah, a life of quiet despair, I believe, was the phrase that he used.
And I have the clip, Matt.
No, it's going to be tough and people are going to criticize you and people aren't going to invite you to things and people are going to misrepresent you.
But that is the path.
And you have to accept that.
And if you don't want to accept that, then you have to accept living a life where you're going to be inauthentic, which to me is the greatest punishment ever.
Yeah, it's true.
Because you don't want to do that.
You don't want to do that.
I mean, we've both lived a life where we weren't everything that we could be.
And as a result of that, I can't remember who said it.
It's a life of quiet despair in many ways.
Because you're not saying what you're thinking or feeling.
You're not being true to yourself.
It's profound stuff, Chris.
And I think it would be good for them to take it to the next level.
Because I think the next level would be to not care about what the IDW big shots...
Think about you.
And to not care about whether or not you get 5 million downloads or not.
And to not tailor your decisions and your content.
No, no, Matt.
Don't speak crazy.
But in any case, Konstantin has transcended that ever since he achieved his career pinnacle of the polemical Oxford Union speech.
But I want to just, you know, they spoke a little bit there about being comedians and the travails.
Of that industry, which I think are well documented because there's a lot of comedians who have podcasts and talk about it.
But I just want to make one point here that Constantine emerged onto the scene, so to speak, because of this controversy, which was that he was given a comedy contract.
You might not realize that this was Constantine, but it's part of his origin story.
He was a comedian.
He was asked to play a gig.
And they give him this contract which demanded, you know, he doesn't say anything that would offend anyone.
And it was a university that sent it to him.
And this is an example of how lily-livered and weak our society has become and cancel culture.
And again, I did a little bit, just a very cursory bit of research into this event.
And would you like to hear about what actually occurred there?
I would.
I would.
Tell me.
So, what Constantine said in December of 2018 was, I just received an invitation to perform comedy, in inverted commas, at a university.
The title of this contract nearly made me puke.
He then puts a screenshot, which is a behavioral agreement form, right?
And it explains this.
Comedy night, they want to put on a safe space and they want it to be about joy and love and acceptance.
No jokes about racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-religion or anti-atheism.
They cover all bases, right?
So that's a cringy letter.
And indeed, a behavioral agreement formed from a university.
What Orwellian nightmare we live in where this can take place.
However, it's not from the university.
The university is SOAS, by the way, my old university.
And this does sound like something SOAS.
I do.
But in this case, they're not guilty of it because it's UNICEF on campus.
That's the organization that sent this letter.
Now, also to note, UNICEF on campus is not anything to do with UNICEF.
It's an independent student organization.
To support UNICEF.
But it's not an official UNICEF organization.
Students unions can set up the Anime Society.
So somebody wanted to set up the UNICEF on-campus society.
And they mentioned that given that UNICEF is a children's charity, they wanted to make sure the event had appropriate comedy for the cause.
Whenever the controversy broke, they said...
We never wish to impose that guests would have to agree to anything they didn't believe in, and we apologize for the misunderstanding.
SOAS' union said they don't require anybody to sign any form of contract, and it's overzealous behavior.
The union believes fully in freedom of speech and the freedom to try to make people laugh.
Wow.
So not only was it not the university, it was not even the student union, which frankly...
For anyone who's been to university knows that they're full of insufferable twats.
They acquitted themselves pretty well.
It was a student club that was organised around children.
Organised around a charity for children.
It was probably not going to be tons of children at the event, but it's a stupid letter.
But it's written presumably by some random student figure in that random society.
And yet, this event receives coverage in...
The BBC, The Guardian, CNN, The Daily Veal.
So, that isn't just national media.
International media covered this event critically.
Chris, I mean, sorry, I don't want to break your stride.
But, I mean, just the thing that jumps out at me is, like, how common this origin story, this being catapulted to fame.
Jordan Peterson, Brett Weinstein.
Like, it's almost a thing, isn't it?
Like, it's someone who is relatively unknown, not a big deal, just chugging along, doing their thing, whether it's doing comedy or teaching psychology or teaching biology on some campus.
No one's heard of them.
Then this media event occurs in which they, the brave, courageous, persecuted lover of freedom and freedom of speech.
Wow, it's perfect.
Yeah, and so what this actually is, Matt, is like...
An overzealous, woke-type student at an obscure university club making an ill-advised content agreement document with no legal force, right?
Just a Google Doc or something that they send to a relatively low-profile anti-woke comedian.
The comedian uses it to generate attention, the media, including liberal outlets.
Dutifully agree.
His profile is boosted.
I think so.
Instead of being an example of woke capture of the institutions, the institutions came out and condemned it immediately.
There wasn't even a letter from them.
The woke academy condemned it.
The woke mainstream media publicized it.
And a star is born.
So it's actually an illustration of how rather than the media won't cover this, no, the media will cover it.
They'll cover anything if it has the right hook.
And SOAS is the most lefty university in the UK.
It's the one Jeremy Corbyn went to give his first speech at.
So that's exactly where you would expect to find, the bleeding edge of social justice supporters and that kind of thing.
So the whole thing is such a non-issue.
And I know it doesn't come up in this content, but it's just, like you say, indicative of this.
Whole oeuvre of people that can emerge from these controversies, in inverted commas.
Yeah, the attention economy.
And the Oxford Union speech, obviously, was the second big hit for Konstantin in terms of getting that attention over what is a culture war flashpoint.
Yeah, and you know, Matt, at the beginning of this podcast, we talked about how you could go and listen to good alternative media content.
You'll get worthwhile information out of it and all this, and we're not just dismissing.
Listen to the way that Constantine and Francis talk about politics and the mainstream and this kind of thing.
Just to be around people who are ambitious and want to achieve things is such a tonic.
Yeah.
And, you know, something Eric Weinstein said when he was in here made me think a lot, which is he talked about how, you know, I'd never flown on a private plane until I got cancelled.
Yeah.
The truth of it is that...
All of the energy, all of the excitement, all of the really, like, stuff that makes you feel alive is in our space now.
Yeah.
You know that?
Yeah.
All the people that we have on our show, that we get to hang out with, that's where the interesting conversations are happening.
Everything else is kind of stale.
I mean, if you look at the party political system, in this country especially, we get someone on the right in here and we ask them what they think of the conservatives.
We get someone on the left in and we ask them what they think about Labour.
No one's excited about any of it.
But this space is exciting.
This space is exciting.
This space is where things are happening.
And this space is where interesting, fascinating conversations are happening.
Is it though, Chris, who was it who said that they hadn't flown on a private jet until they got cancelled?
Yeah, I don't know that was Eric saying he hadn't, because I don't think he's been publicly cancelled.
I guess he was telling Constantine that he had not flown on a private jet.
But in any case, the message is kind of clear, right?
Which is, again, very frank and refreshing in that respect, which is admitting that being cancelled is pretty great.
You know?
I mean, it's the pathway to be part of fascinating people, success, flying around on private jets, fantastic stuff.
Yeah, but that...
Presentation, Matt, that this is the space where the exciting things are happening.
Politicians, you know, mainstream, they're out there talking about incremental improvements or disagreements over these issues.
But what is interesting is all these firebrand...
We need to tear it down.
That's where the really interesting energy is, isn't it?
And you can see the populism and kind of the...
Mundane, actual discussions about politics that you might see on a political show or whatever.
That's all boring, Matt.
What you need is somebody who's just going to say it's all a load of nonsense, isn't it?
Join my freedom party to restore the UK to where it should be.
What's really going on with vaccines in Ukraine?
Yeah, or speaking to crazy young lady.
They spoke to you last time.
What was her name?
Oh, Pearl.
Pearl.
Yeah.
That's where the energy is.
That's the real honest conversations.
And I get it.
I mean, it is more interesting in a way than talking about some boring policy change that's being proposed or some platform for an election.
I find politics pretty boring, but that's why I listen to History and Physics podcasts.
But this is something else, isn't it?
It's rank populism, as you said.
Yeah, on the subject of Perlma, you do remember they were willing to push back on her, someone palling around with Nick Frentes.
But I think that's the kind of thing they're talking about when they say this.
And you know, also, we've become better interviewers.
One of the things people don't realize is it's kind of hard in our game, in the new media world, where, you know, you've spent months chasing a guest.
Yeah.
And then they come on and they say something you don't necessarily agree with.
Initially, when you're starting out, it can be tempting to just let it go.
Whereas now, I think we feel much more confident about challenging people when they say things that don't make sense to us.
And you've seen that in, you know, we go into every interview with a ton of good faith.
But also, if someone is saying something that's not quite true, we are going to get to the bottom of it.
Are you?
Yeah, well, again, Chris, before I commented on the framing, like the extent of framing about how, oh, yes, all of the money and attention is nice, but really what we care about is producing quality content.
That's not what we care about.
And again, here, the framing is an understandable human motivation to suck up to the big-name guests that you've been trying to get on because they're big-name guests, right?
And how they've become stronger and more courageous in actually putting harder questions to them and not just yes-anding them all the time.
But really, they doth protest too much because I just...
How to put this, Chris?
You can see the problem there.
You can see the incentives.
If you were feeling that, if you were chasing whoever it could be, maybe Sam Harris, for instance.
He's a big name.
You were chasing Sam Harris.
We really wanted to get Sam Harris on the show.
And now we've got Sam Harris on the show.
It's going to be good for our numbers.
It's going to be good for our profiles.
It's going to be good for everything, Chris.
So we're going to have to be nice to him.
You didn't feel that, right?
And they're being very frank and honest here, right?
Because as we said at the beginning, they are running ultimately a small business and their livelihoods do depend on those things.
And they're being very accidentally, perhaps, honest, I think, about...
What is really driving the editorial line?
Yeah, and they, just for an example, Matt, that we've covered on this podcast before, they invested this guy, Jim Richards, a lawyer and investment banker who's kind of mad guy, promotes like precious metals, gold and metal, right?
They're like a contrarian economist.
But that doesn't matter because he went in depth about how climate change isn't real.
And actually, even more so than, you know, it's...
It's a happening, but it's not a problem.
That carbon dioxide is actually good.
My point is, they will...
So you're an up-and-coming climate researcher or physicist, whatever.
You will not get tenure.
You will not get published.
You will not get research grants.
If you deviate in any way from the narrative, which is that CO2 is poison, methane is poison, there's...
If global temperatures go up, whatever, 1.5 centigrade before a certain time, the oceans are going to rise, New York City subways will be flooded.
None of that is true.
There is no evidence that shows conclusively that CO2 has anything to do with global warming, number one.
You can speculate on it.
It is a greenhouse gas.
It does trap...
But the system is so complex that other factors come into play that tend to reverse, have recursive functions that tend to reverse whatever it was that started.
The causes of climate change are actually very well known.
Sun cycles, volcanoes, ocean currents, the location of the jet stream.
There are a set of factors, you know, La Nina, El Nino, that oceanic subduction where...
And then...
They clearly wanted to get off that topic.
And if you remember, Constantine says, you know, oh, well, people are going to say, you know, they disagree with that.
But then he frames it as, and isn't it terrible that I'm feeling nervous about it because we can't even have the conversation?
So, of course, the climate changes, you know, and say, you know, you're a climate denierer.
I'm not a climate denierer.
Climates change all the time.
I just deny bad science.
I deny your hoax.
I deny your lies.
That's, yeah.
All right.
Well, this video is not demonetized, thanks to you, Jim.
But, you know, it's weird because matters of science, you could be completely wrong about this, right?
I'm not saying you are, but you could be.
And we should still be able to have the conversation.
But it does feel like, to me, I feel it inside of hosting the show right now.
I feel like I have to sort of acknowledge the fact that you've expressed a controversial view that goes against what we all are supposed to believe.
No, I have not expressed an opinion.
Everything I've said is based on science.
I can be happy to, pardon me, deluge you with the peer-reviewed papers.
What's interesting is that the...
They're true experts.
I'm talking about Princeton physicists, University of Colorado, by the way, they're one of the top research universities in this field.
The guys and women, mostly guys, who are retired, who aren't worried about all the things, they're writing papers that completely refute the climate change narrative.
I should call it the global warming CO2 narrative, because anyone who knows anything knows that climate's changed.
I lived 10 years.
Let's not spend too long on this, because I just wanted to point that out.
But the thing I really wanted to talk about as well, James, is one of the things that defined the politics of the...
That's the real issue here.
So, like, they didn't challenge him.
They mentioned that others might not agree with it.
And then they very quickly...
They lamented the fact that they were not able to...
The way he framed it then is not actually true, right?
The thing that is true is what...
He said before, which is that they don't want to make high-profile guests unhappy because they want to book more of them.
Yeah, so you mentioned Sam Harris.
So they talk about him a little bit.
And if you remember, Sam Harris got in hassle, right, because he made the comments about Hunter Biden's laptop on their show, that viral...
That got him in hassle in the conservative media sphere.
For all the concerns we had about how that interview got spun and whatever, I interviewed Sam Harris last year as a good example.
And when we go back to America, we're going to interview Sam again.
Yeah, and I'm really looking forward to it.
So am I. Just what I say about this is because presumably they've agreed with Sam that they'll do that, right?
Sam has an addiction to going and talking.
Like, he doesn't...
The people that he doesn't talk, it's quite telling, you know, because he doesn't have this compulsion to go and talk to left-leaning media in general.
But he just seems like he can't resist Brussels brand or trigonometry or whatever they are.
It's kind of inexplicable, isn't it?
Because Sam Harris doesn't need to do it.
It doesn't seem to be...
Like, I don't really get it.
Do you?
No, I mean, so even if you take it that Sam is like a closet right-winger, right?
But the Constantine or the trigonometry podcasts just tend to generate him hassle, which he describes in depth on his podcast, right?
It's just people taking clips and dunking on them and their whole audience hates them.
So presumably it's that the interpersonal part was fine.
So yeah, I don't fully...
I don't get why, but, you know, I'm Matt Sam.
Yeah, so there's that.
So, Matt, there's one other element that we haven't talked about in this, and I think it's better that we leave it deep into the podcast where some people will never reach, because this is a little, it's both, I think, a good point, and also impossible not to find,
like, a little bit cringy.
Because, right, all the things that we're talking about, it's mostly around Constantine, right?
Clearly, he is the front man.
It's his speech that provided trigonometry the boost, right?
Oh, and just to say that Constantine draws this bow about the speech being the thing propelling trigonometry forward.
If we don't have trigonometry, if people don't already know who I am and I don't already have a significant following on social media...
I could still do that speech if I'd been invited, let's say, although I probably wouldn't have been invited to speak at Dogs for the Union.
And I'd do that speech, and it really wouldn't have the impact either on us or the world that it did because we'd put in the work to create the foundation to launch something like that.
Okay.
So I just play that to say, you know, he is doing his best that Freeman does.
This was a boost for...
Yeah, and it was our joint efforts, Francis and him, in putting together a platform that meant those benefits could be realized.
Yeah, and this comes up before.
There's like a segment on this which I've got some clips from.
So here is Konstantin being a considerate friend, I think, to Francis.
It's weird how I feel like all the success that you and I have had has always been Because we always had the mentality that the only thing that could prevent us from being successful is if you and I were to fall out and not stick together.
And that's not to say you and I have never had arguments or fallings out or whatever.
But one of the interesting things to me was when my Oxford speech happened, so many people messaged me and they were asking me if you were alright.
And I just thought that is such an interesting way of looking at it because...
Look, I understand people sometimes are resentful or whatever, but I just feel like everything we've built, we've always done it together.
So when I wrote my book, you looked through and you helped me punch it up.
When you write your monologues, I looked through and I helped you adjust it and whatever.
We've always done things together.
And so the success we've had has been together.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe, you know, what was it like for you when that happened?
Because a lot of people were asking me about this.
A laudable sentiment.
It is nice to say.
I do feel that that's a...
Fair reaction for people to have when, like, one figure from a co-hosted podcast is suddenly getting lots of attention, primarily focused on them, right?
So how's your...
Yeah, how's Francis holding up with this, right?
And this is a difficult conversation, right, Matt?
Because, like, what's Francis going to say?
Yeah, it was actually really annoying, right?
Like, he can't say that anyway, but I think most people wouldn't, right?
Like, so what, Francis?
I know what it's like to be skinned.
And whenever you're skinned, you carry that around with you a little bit because you know what it's like to have to bunk a train because you've literally got no money.
You know what that's like.
So there was that fear.
And then when it happened for you, I was so relieved.
And I was just like, oh, he's absolutely smashed it.
He's pulled it out of the bag.
And I was delighted for you.
And I remember people going to me and going, oh, are you jealous?
No, because this is what we built together.
This is what...
We're a team.
And I've always compared what we do to a band.
Yeah.
We're a band, you know.
And so the fact that you went and you did this amazing thing was incredible for all of us.
It was something I was genuinely proud of.
And also as well, it is completely what you should be doing.
It's not what I should be doing.
No, no, no.
You know, if I went on there and I started banging on about what you were talking about, people would be like, alright, it's a bit...
Because it's not what I should be doing.
Totally.
I think jealousy...
I understand the emotion of jealousy, of course I do, and the pangs that people feel and whatever else, but on a deeper level, I genuinely believe that everybody is on their path.
And what...
Somebody is doing.
It's not your path.
That was all nice and perfectly fine.
The only small bone I had to pick was just...
Constance had been a little bit too quick to jump in with the...
Yes.
And now, of course, I shouldn't be doing that.
No, no, no.
Not you.
Not you.
Yeah, a little bit too quick there, but apart from that, all fine.
But yeah, a little bit cringe as well.
But again, it's all very normal, isn't it?
I mean, look, one of these days, Chris, you're going to be off there debating Destiny.
You're going to be Twitter-framing.
We're going to have this conversation.
We're going to have this conversation.
I'm going to be fine with it.
You're doing well.
I'm very happy for him.
It's fine.
Totally fine.
I don't even care.
We built this together, Matt.
That's the important thing.
I'm playing the drums.
He's out there on lead vocals.
We're a band.
I'm going to be cool with it when it happens for you, man.
I'm going to, like, so I will perfectly say that, like, just the human element is, like, this is two people navigating the situation.
Constantine is trying to be considerate.
And Francis is...
Like being, what's that word, where you're...
Supportive?
Self-effacing?
I don't know.
Yeah, supportive, self-effacing, just, you know, in general, he's responding in the way...
A good human would, yes.
Yeah, and you do see, you know, so we pointed out that Constantine was quick to agree, but he does, like, big up Francis, right?
He does.
Here's an example of this.
It's been amazing to work.
And spend time and share and grow and develop and just see you develop and to see you improve.
It's been a privilege.
It's been a privilege because it's been a privilege to see you get better and it also makes me want to get better and it makes me want to improve.
And you're crushing it, man.
I mean, you're doing lots of TV now.
We've got your clips coming out on the channel that are doing really well.
You've been doing your comedy monologues, which...
Improving and growing over time as well.
So, you know, I'm really excited to see.
I've always said to you, and people won't know this, but I've always pushed you along, sometimes too much maybe or too forcefully at least, but I've always really believed in you.
So absolutely, Chris.
Jokes aside, I was cringing a lot throughout because there was just so much self-congratulatory, self-indulgent stuff going on.
This was also a bit self-indulgent, but it was them talking about a natural thing that happens when one of them is getting all of their act.
Yeah, and there is the issue of,
like, what Francis is...
If he's not supposed to be doing the monologues that Constantine does.
But they talk about that.
They say he's got comedy and he's writing a book and hosting things.
You might have missed it because you were playing at two times speed.
But they were giving examples of how it's important to swing and miss and it's okay to embrace failure.
And they played a video clip of Francis.
Like, totally fucking up.
Did you miss that?
Oh, my God.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know what you're talking about.
They play a clip of him hosting a event for GB News.
Yeah, it's one where it doesn't go well.
And look, if it goes, and I'll tell this story.
So I presented a show on GB News, which is Headliners.
And they got me in, and I was very happy, and they gave me the clicker, and I went to start, and the clicker froze, and everything went wrong.
Let's take a look at those front pages.
The Daily Mail are going with Make Coward Letpy Face Us.
This is to do with Nurse Letpy, who is refusing to actually face the...
the judge when she is being sentenced.
The Times is now going with "Let be police fear that she attacked 30 more babies."
So they're kind of highlighting, you know, sometimes there's setbacks and things don't go with you well, but there was an odd choice after the segment where they were talking about...
Constantin's success and Francis's being totally okay with that.
And then the segue was to that time that Francis totally screwed up.
But it was, I don't know.
I felt sorry for Francis.
But anyway, they seem okay with it.
So that's, it's fine.
Matt, we do also like to try and find at least one.
Things where we agree with the people, right?
And, you know, we could say this bit, but I would say this sentiment that Constantine expressed, I find...
I know what you're going to play.
Oh, really?
I know what it is.
What is it?
This is how simpatico we are.
Okay, let's see.
I haven't told you.
You haven't told me.
I know what you're going to play.
Okay, let's see if it's what you expect.
And the reality is, as well, man, is, you know, I think people...
I don't know if it was true for you, but for many people, I think we kind of live through life waiting for something to happen.
Yeah.
For someone to come and save us somehow.
And the truth is, no one's coming.
No one's coming to save you.
No one gives a shit.
People are busy living their own lives.
They're not sitting there judging you and wondering what your opinion is about this or that most of the time.
Another thing is, you don't know when you're going to die, but when you do...
All that's going to happen is they're going to put you in the ground, throw some dirt on top, and go and eat some food.
Yeah.
That's it.
That's it.
There's no big glory.
Okay, look, you're famous, whatever.
There'll be lots of people at the funeral.
But that's it.
Nothing happens.
And so you might as well make the most of what you've got.
You might as well say what you think.
You might as well be yourself.
Was that it?
That was it.
And I think a little bit earlier to that, Konstantin spoke about how it's okay to screw up because in your mind, when you've screwed up in some way, you've embarrassed yourself, there's been some total failure, people are laughing at you and so on.
Like, don't worry about it because in 10 minutes they'll have forgotten about you.
Most people are thinking about themselves and they're not dwelling on the mistakes and stuff that you make.
So it's a natural human impulse to dwell on it and beat yourself up.
Don't do that and don't worry what other people are thinking about you because they're probably not thinking about you very much at all.
So it was very much a related point and I thought it was reasonably profound even.
It was good.
Yeah, agreed.
Well, I don't know if I'd say profound.
I want to walk that back a little bit.
That's going to be on the cover of the book.
I'm walking that back.
Everyone on Reddit.
Sit down, put away the keyboard.
I just think that's something that kids, for instance, if you've got young children and teenagers, that's something.
It's a good message.
It is a good message.
And before people on the Reddit, because I know what they're up to as well, Matt, before they say, focusing on that speech, it was an Oxford Union speech, it's not representative, that's just, like, it's supposed to be full of rhetoric and stuff.
Just listen to Francis explain.
And that's why your speech worked, because you were absolutely you.
It was you distilled.
You weren't trying to be something else.
You weren't saying something that you didn't wholeheartedly believe in.
And there's a very famous playwright, and I say it all the time, David Mamet, words that come from the heart go to the heart.
And that's why that speech connected, and that's why it was brilliant, and that's why it worked.
And I don't think people actually...
Really understand that.
So, hey, Francis himself says you can take the speech as indicative of Constantine.
It's pure Constantine in its most distilled form.
I think he could be right about that.
Yeah, I would agree.
That's exactly right.
So, oh, man.
And there was one other clip.
There's just one more that I feel we shouldn't miss.
Is this like a Columbo move?
You're leaving, you turn around.
One more thing.
You said you were at the swimming pool.
I actually had my various profile logins were Columbo because I just like this disheveled appearance and kind of, you know.
Underestimated, Matt.
It was underestimated, Columbo.
Yeah, I can see that.
I can see your affinity with Columbo.
As everyone knows, my online identity is Arthur Dent, with a fictional character for whom I feel I share an affinity.
You are Columbo.
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel he's a much more successful version.
And perhaps I'm slightly less disheveled than I'm slightly.
His dirty mark.
Just wait.
Give it a few years, Chris.
Maybe.
Okay.
All right.
So what's your stinger?
I've got a little clip where, you know, we hear this a lot in the sense-making sphere, in the alternative media ecosystem, about long-form conversations and the power they have, the unbelievable power they have to transform lives,
spirits, the universe itself, the fabric of time.
So here's Constantine and perhaps Francis, anyway, talking about...
The importance of long-form interviews.
There's so many things.
And look, the impact that we want to make on the world is that we live in these very superficial times.
This culture of everything being condensed into a tiny little tweet or whatever, that's not the way human communication is supposed to be.
And it's almost a tragedy in the sense that...
Even in our own lives, you and I, the conversations like this that you and I have and the conversations we have with our guests are probably one of the few times in our lives, in all of our lives, that we actually get to sit down and connect with another human being for an hour uninterrupted by phones or whatever.
And that is quite extraordinary that we get to do that for a living.
And that we get to share that with the world and people can join in those conversations and see people who are actually communicating in a way that human beings are supposed to communicate, you know, in a world that really, really very rarely has the opportunity for people to do that.
Beautiful.
It's like Carl Sagan's pale blue dot and now Constantine's ode to...
Speaking to someone for an hour.
I mean, by that criteria, Chris, the experiences that you and I have had together.
Yeah, what we've delivered to the world for this.
Just the hushed, reverential tone to conducting a culture war interview.
Like, what are the Florence Fox or Sebastian Gorka?
Can you imagine?
Like, this is what humans are made for.
We're mean for this.
Just the privilege of being able to interact with you, Chris, for literally hours at a time.
It's been something.
I know.
It's been special.
People pay money for that privilege.
People attend university courses to do that.
But, yeah, just like with the Sensemakers, Matt, they talked about, you know, this...
Entwined union, a new entity emerging from their ability to have long-form conversations with people, a spiritual entity bigger than the individual components, right?
Something new emerges, something spectacular.
I just feel that spirit here in this sentiment.
And, oh my God.
I mean, like you're right, the sense makers have actually elevated this sort of worship of discourse.
Into a formal philosophical system where the process is a spiritual experience.
It's really quite amazing.
But the stuff that Constantine is saying there, it's really, you hear it from all of them, don't you?
You hear it from Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, all of them wax lyrical on just the specialness, the sheer feeling of just talking incessantly.
Counterpoint, Matt.
Could it not be indulgent in some occasions?
Could it not be that by talking to someone in a way that just allows them to, with very limited pushback, present an idea or like a Scott Adams take on politics or whatever,
that actually you're not doing something useful?
For the world, you're just giving a polemical, partisan, culture war-pilled moron the chance to speak to a largely polemical audience unmolested for an hour, like everyone else in the fucking discourse sphere is doing on their one million podcasts with the same guests talking about the same topics.
I understand the annoyance.
We talked at the start of this episode about...
That it is good that alternative media gives you the ability to spend more time digging into history, going into niche topics.
Yes, doing long-form interviews.
I want to hear Louis Furrow interviewed for two and a half hours about his craft or that kind of thing.
And if your thing is partisan culture war pundits like Douglas Murray, you really love hearing him talk about all the issues that he identifies with the liberal media.
For three hours, then more bullied to you.
But don't kid yourself that that's something spiritual and transcendent.
It's just a conversation with a pundit.
And that's what a lot of trigonometry's output is.
That's right.
This long-form format and unscripted and relatively self-indulgent, including us.
Yeah, we do it.
We do it.
Don't make it fucking spiritual.
Yeah, but how you use that time is up to you.
And if you're going to listen to whatever, Hardcore History or the Revolutions podcast, then you're going to hear somebody actually using that time.
And conveying as much information to you as they can.
Or it could be like us where we use that relatively self-indulgent way to analyze the other discourse.
Or you could use it for even more self-indulgent purposes.
But yeah, don't kid yourself.
Yeah, and I will actually say that I've listened to trigonometry conversations sometimes that I've enjoyed.
They're discussing something with somebody and there's a segment of it which is...
Interesting.
And, you know, it isn't like all of their content is just terrible and they never talk about any relevant issues or that kind of stuff.
It's just the difference between what they are presenting, what they're doing versus like what their channel actually is.
And I would encourage anyone that thinks we're being unfair, just go look at the thumbnails on their channel and see, is this really, you know, what the world...
Needs more of.
But it doesn't say if you ever enjoy trigonometry or any of their guests, like what a fool you are.
Then there's something wrong with...
Yeah, that's right.
And it's worth emphasizing that in the pantheon of these heterodox figures, trigonometry is not even close to being the worst.
The worst.
No, it's not...
Case in point would be that Constantin's take on the rape allegations with Russell Brandt.
I mean, his take was that both-sidest type.
I didn't love it, but compared to all of the other heterodox ones, it was okay.
Compared to the more, like, Elon Musk style, like, or Tucker Carlson, yes, he didn't pander just entirely to it all being a stitch-up.
He went the route of both sides are equally wrong to, like, respond.
Elon with finding the accusations convincing or to dismiss them.
It's all the same.
They're completely...
Equal.
You have to wait until the court case.
That was his take.
Not a super profound take.
Don't love it, but not...
Yeah, exactly.
Not as terrible.
So our point here is just trigonometry.
Not the worst culture or outlet in the world.
You know, competing with Dave Rubin and Scott Adams.
Give them time.
We'll see how things go for them.
Okay.
Yeah, okay.
So, well, why don't we finish?
While just saying that, you know, where they're going, Matt, the journey that they're on, the rocket ship trigonometry, where do they go from here?
Absolutely.
I'm proud of everything that we've achieved.
I'm excited.
Oh, mate, the rest of this year is going to be absolute dynamite.
We've got, I mean, the stuff we've got coming up.
Yeah.
It's exciting as hell.
Nigel Farage.
In terms of what the media organization that we're building is going to look like.
It's what the people want, Chris.
We'll be talking more about that when the time is right.
But also, some of the stuff we're going to get up to in America, some of the brilliant guests we've got lined up here.
You and I are going to continue putting out comedic and satirical stuff.
Oh God.
I've never seen any of the comedic stuff.
I will insert here for our audience one of their comedic ad reads just so that people can see their satirical chops.
Oh, I did hear their satirical...
Yes.
Yes, they should hear that.
Hey, Constantine.
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Of course.
In my country, we judge men's health by his ability to wrestle bear.
In London, I have since found out this has very different meaning.
We've all had a night that's got out of hand.
We will speak no more of this.
The secret will be buried with my ancestors.
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I hope you all enjoyed that.
But yeah, so just, you know, big things are coming for Trigonometry.
The 10th interview with Nigel Farage, the 14th interview with Matthew Goodwin.
From across the political spectrum, they've got guests from everywhere.
So, yeah, just weird.
And the sad thing is, Matt, they're probably right.
They probably are correct that the star will continue to rise and that they may become, you know, an umbrella organization pretty now.
But it is already a crowded marketplace.
And they seem to be wanting to focus a bit on American stuff.
But already over there, you've got a huge amount of people doing what they're doing.
Yeah, like you say, there's a big market for this material.
It's a crowded market as well.
So who can say what the future holds for Francis and Konstantin?
I won't say good luck.
I wish them well.
Yeah.
And you can see part of the strategy that has been discussed here is evident from Konstantin's feed because now he started putting out these videos which are monologues of him sitting in a chair talking about issues and they tend to be framed around culture war topics with a particular controversy generating hoax such as the Nazis were not as bad as the communists in this way.
Why communism is even worse than fascism.
I'm aware that if you follow our channel, you understand nuance and complexity.
But sadly, not everyone does.
In view of this, I have to make this disclaimer for those who will inevitably attempt to misrepresent what I'm saying in the future.
Nothing I'm about to say is intended to serve as a defense of fascism.
I'm not saying the Nazis are not bad, but I'm just saying...
Because while fascism is nationalistic, totalitarian and collectivist, it does not aspire to dominate the lives of ordinary citizens to anything like the same extent.
Communism, remember, rejected the idea of private property, private enterprise, or indeed a private life of any kind.
In the Soviet Union, you were explicitly told to put the interests of the state above not only your own, but those of your loved ones.
If you read my book, An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West, you'll remember the story of Pavlik Marozov, a boy who reported his own father to the authorities and was held up as a national hero.
Fascism was almost as evil as communism, to be sure, but it did not attempt to achieve its aims by stealing and redistributing private property.
Yeah, right, or Jordan Peterson is only attacked because of, you know...
Well, I think, yeah, Jordan Peterson's attacked because he wants men to be...
The fact is, a powerful minority want men to be weak, incompetent and feeble.
They don't understand that in doing so they're sowing the seeds of their own and our entire society's downfall.
The attempt to undermine, subvert and problematize healthy masculinity is guaranteed to backfire and already is backfiring.
First, it makes us vulnerable to other cultures which raise men to be strong and capable.
Second, suppressing healthy masculinity only leads to other, mostly unhealthy, expressions of masculinity.
But displaced masculinity can also come out in unhealthy ways, too.
This is where Jordan came in.
He reminded men what being a man actually means: responsibility, duty, sacrifice, courage, and honor.
And for this, he was roundly attacked by journalists, mainly female ones, as being divisive and toxic, etc.
For telling men to be better.
Jordan isn't perfect.
No one is.
But his message was essential, especially for men.
and then trying to ruin his career for it.
Music by Ben Thede.
Yeah, that's it.
That's the only thing that they find objectionable about him.
But yeah, so you can see it, right?
Because that's not their usual kind of content, the more like little edited piece, controversy generating, memeable.
It's attempt to get Oxford Union version number two.
Yeah, memeable content.
And, you know, who knows my work?
I mean, Jordan Peterson's getting older and more frail and less coherent these days.
So, you know, we need a new generation of influencers.
Could be you, Constantine.
I will say it.
Good luck.
Good luck.
Yeah.
Yeah, good luck.
Look forward to it.
All right.
Well, that's it.
And, you know, in terms of where they fall in the sphere of gurus, they, I think, lack some of the The more I listen to Francis,
the more sympathetic I feel to him.
Not to say I like him, but I feel...
A certain level of sympathy.
You can feel sympathy.
It's okay.
But yeah, I like to have a little guess because it's hard for me to tell actually until we do it what they'll score on the Garometer.
But I suspect Konstantin won't score that high.
I really feel like he's more of a grinding influencer.
You know, with a political beat.
He didn't score that high, Matt.
We put him in.
Oh, that's right.
And he didn't.
It was, you know, middling.
It was kind of aspirational.
I think, though, he does have aspirations, as you can see in this content, right?
Yeah, very much so.
So in that respect, he does share something of the personal.
Traits of some of the other gurus.
But he's already picked.
He's, you know, released his masterpiece, The Union Speech.
Where do you go from there?
Where can he go from here?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
But, you know, just again, Matt, the last thing I'll say is just this has all been around, this successful viral video.
And it is just honestly astonishing to me that that carries such personal, professional, like emotional significance.
It's astonishing.
It is astonishing, and it's partly a reflection of the media world we live in now, but it's partly a reflection of their character, I suppose, which is linked, I suppose, because it's their business model as well.
But yeah, it is amazing.
I don't want to sound mean, but it's hard to comment on it without sounding like an asshole.
But honestly, I would hate to be in a situation.
In life where going viral, especially a political red meat diatribe like that, was the thing that I linked my self-esteem to.
It was the thing that showed that I'd made it, that I could actually look back on my life and my career with any kind of respect.
You could look at your wife.
Until I...
Until...
Anyway, like I said, it's hard to comment on that without being mean, but it is surprising.
That's all right.
It's all right to be mean sometimes.
You would say that.
Well, that's it.
That's it.
So we're off now.
We're not going to be back in trigonometry waters for a good while.
I don't care who they interview.
I wash my hands of the situation, and that's it.
They're done.
Are we going to do an outro?
Do we need to do outros?
Yeah, we do.
We do do outros, Matt, in this world.
That's one thing we do.
We often go to reviews that other people have given of our content, and we review those in a review of reviews.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like an execution squad of reviews.
We've reviewed Constantine and Francis.
It didn't go well.
Now we get reviewed.
It's our turn.
Let's see how it goes.
Yeah, so the negative one is quite specific.
The title of it is 13th January 2023, Malone and McCulloch.
That's the title.
Ah, okay.
Bodes well.
I think I know where this is going already, yes.
And Tim of Townsville from Australia.
This is the person who has left this review.
I'd love to hear a redo of this podcast and consider the release of the Pfizer documents, the acknowledgement that the vaccines cause myocarditis, the increase in all-cause mortality in the USA, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, also the Australia TGA DAEN that details nearly 1,000
deaths attributable to the vaccine, over 130,000 adverse reactions, the reason highly vaccinated persons were in hospital in NSW Australia before the figures were stopped being published.
That's the end.
That is specific.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, I can give it to them, Matt.
A redo of the podcast.
I'll give it to them in one minute.
Malone and McCulloch are still absolute conspiratorial arseholes relying on misrepresentation of statistics, fear-mongering, outright lies, and just bullshit.
Waffle, right?
So, yeah, sorry.
None of that.
All those things that you've said, it just shows that your media diet is absolutely poisoned, perhaps by them.
So, yeah, there's your retake of it.
No, sorry.
Go subscribe to Debunk the Funk.
That will help you.
That will help you.
That's right.
Every single one of those things you cited was nonsense in terms of being a substantive point.
But we're not going to explain that here, are we?
Because there's no time for this.
No.
No, no, no, no.
And our friends Debunk the Funk and various others have addressed all these points better if you want.
Just come on.
We know how many people have died in the pandemic and the endless point that you just have to return to here is don't compare adverse effects to not getting vaccinated.
Compare it to getting COVID.
It is always worse.
Always worse.
The comparison is always worse.
Even if you're a young man with very low risk, it's still worse.
Okay.
Okay.
Now, positive reviews.
Positive reviews.
We have many, too many to choose from.
And we have one where somebody released two of the exact same review submitted, and one had the title A-, and the other had the title B. So I think they were deciding to agree and they submitted twice.
The more recent one is A-, so I guess we went up.
We'll take the more recent one.
That was the last one submitted, so that's definitive.
So here's the five-star positive one.
God, you should be the one reading this.
This is from Tui Song 41.10.
Topsy-turvy accents.
Here in Aiotiroa, New Zealand, IoT Roa?
Do you know IoT Roa?
Yep.
It doesn't sound like that, though.
Okay.
Well, there.
We expect the Australian accent to be a tinny, whiny, evil version of our own, and the various Irish accents to be soft, lilting, and lyrical.
These podcasters are doing their best to destroy these stereotypes.
The content isn't as great as Pavlova.
But it is better than underarm bullying.
There is disappointingly little swearing for an Aussie and an Irishman.
Well, we are academics.
You have to keep that in mind.
So I'm not a proper Australian.
I'm a toned-down, softer version of a real Australian.
That was very nice and from a New Zealander too.
The last person you'd expect to hear a compliment from.
Yeah, they were casting aspersions my way.
Yeah, but he's Irish.
Everyone likes Irish people.
No, but, you know, the accents do a lot of work there, Chris.
Look at what we've done.
We've challenged stereotypes, New Zealand stereotypes.
That's how strong our accents are.
Yeah, yeah, this is true.
And I think you come out the better for that.
But that's all right.
I do.
That's all right.
I can take your slings and arrows.
Yeah, you win some, you lose some.
People say nice things about you occasionally.
Can't remember the last time.
Too few, but that's all right.
Just whip to my viral speech and, you know what, you contribute.
You might.
You might be debating this in one of these days.
I could see it in you.
I know.
You've got the kind of obsessive energy.
You don't crave success enough.
You've got a self-sabotaging aspect to you, but you are obsessive.
I am obsessive, but if I went viral for debating Destiny, it would be Destiny Destroys Cuck Academy.
So that's my inevitable destiny.
Well, in any case, we have people that support us, Matt, for this.
For what we've just produced, what we've done, what we've delivered to the world.
And in many respects, we let people see through the bubbles.
They see both sides.
They don't just hear things that they want to agree with.
They've got guests from all over the political spectrum.
What's that worth to people?
I know what it's worth to me.
It's extremely validating every time you reel off this long list of names.
It's proof, Chris.
It's proof that we're on the right track.
How many are there?
Who knows?
You don't know.
I'm sure there's dozens of them.
Or dozens.
Somebody sent a message to say, I got my shout-out after two years.
Thank you.
Oh, God.
So I apologize.
And will you be the lucky person today?
Let's find out.
So first up, Matt, we have conspiracy hypothesizers.
And here...
We have, well, who should I mention?
Let me just get this up.
Yes, yes.
Papers rustling.
There they are.
There they all are.
Lovely people.
Now, here we go.
Here we go.
Ralph Kink, David Schmitz, Daniel Holmes, Tolesa420, Jeffrey Croft, Karen Weikert, David Biasotti, Carolina
Alex...
Scott, Joaquin Paul Fonacruzza, Nick Marconi, Mark Granderborough, Nitz, Dustin Hall, Carolyn Fernavelle,
Amy Flynn, Julian, Peter Kerr, Phil Richardson, Matthias Larsson, Widget, and Borgie Olsen.
Borgie Olsen.
Well, great names.
That was a lot of work for you.
I could see the sweat dripping up your forehead as you were pronouncing them.
Well, well done, Chris, and thank you, everybody.
Yeah, thank you all.
I feel like there was a conference that none of us were invited to that came to some very strong conclusions, and they've all circulated this list of correct answers.
I wasn't at this conference.
This kind of shit makes me think, man.
It's almost like someone is being paid.
Like, when you hear these George Soros stories, he's trying to destroy the country from within.
We are not going to advance conspiracy theories.
We will advance conspiracy hypotheses.
And I'm going to thank some revolutionary thinkers.
I'm going to thank David.
I'm going to thank...
I'm going to stop saying thank because I know I say that with an F sound.
I will send my gratitude to Raquel Rosenfeld, Nowhere Man, Michael MacArthur, Louis Price, Jessa, Patrick Youngblood, Hello Sullivan,
Johnny Jelkvist, Ro Jogan, Hamilton Verissimo, Benjamin, Graham Clark, And Michael Nelson.
Well, that is good.
All good names.
You know the other word you shouldn't say because you don't say it right?
Apart from fank.
Hella.
Hella.
What's wrong with that?
Hella.
Can you hear what's wrong with that?
Hella.
I didn't say that there.
I didn't say that now.
There was nobody with the name.
Hello?
Again, sweat dripping from the forehead.
I'm sorry.
No, it's fine.
It's fine to say it like that.
I didn't thank anybody.
I did not say my gratitude to anybody called Heather.
No, no.
No, no, no.
That's right.
Thank you, Heather.
Lovely name.
Was there a Heather?
Was there a Heather in that sense?
Yes, there was a Heather.
Unless the actual name was Hella.
H-E-L-L-E-R.
In which case, I'll take it back.
I'll take it.
I retract it in that circumstance, Chris.
I see.
It wasn't random abuse.
That makes sense.
Okay.
Okay.
I'll accept it then.
We will play a clip to thank you all properly.
I'm usually running, I don't know, 70 or 90 distinct paradigms simultaneously all the time.
And the idea is not to try to collapse them down to a single master paradigm.
I'm someone who's a true polymath.
I'm all over the place.
But my main claim to fame, if you'd like, in academia is that I founded the field of evolutionary consumption.
Now, that's just a guess, and it could easily be wrong.
But it also could not be wrong.
The fact that it's even plausible is stunning.
The thing that's stunning, Chris, again, maybe he will score higher if we write it again, but just that level of self-congratulation, like just the degree to which with a...
Perfectly straight face and no degree of cringe.
Someone could say that they're just brilliant.
That they're a polymath.
That they're courageous.
That they're trying to save the world.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, it is amazing.
It's quite something.
It makes it much worse when you know the context is Jordan saying that...
Hospitals kill more people than they help.
So it's not even something that is possibly an interesting thought experiment or whatever.
It's just something objectively wrong.
But the thought that you could suggest that is stunning.
Stunning.
Yeah, such an important conversation to be had.
But you know, Chris, we need to have all the conversations.
We need to have all of them.
Let no conversation be unhad.
Deal with the big ideas.
Have the robust disagreements.
That's the only way we're going to make the world a better place.
So, yeah.
Thank you.
Well, thank you too for this.
Next week or whenever we'll be on to some of those people that we mentioned will take longer.
So, look forward to that.
But, yeah.
That's it for today.
That's all, folks.
Very good.
Nice to see you, Chris.
I'll see you all in a bit.
Bye.
Yeah, go grovel at the feet of your muscle master, Mark.
Remember that?
No, I remember that.
Bye.
Bye.
Didn't work then, doesn't work there.
work there.
Don't forget to subscribe to our channel.
Donald Trump is in court facing 37 charges of mishandling classified documents and lying to investigators.
And all the Democrats are rubbing their hands together thinking they've got him.
Apart from Joe Biden, who's forgotten what hands are.
Come on, man.
All you're doing is making Trump even more insane.
Vendettas to Trump is like cocaine to Scarface.
Trump.
He's currently in his office now, feeding off vendettas.
It's only a matter of time before he comes out with his machine gun and starts blasting away.
Say hello to my little friend.
It's not little, it's enormous.
These aren't my words.
This is what people have been saying about me.
I have the biggest machine gun, the greatest in America.
Trump is going to jail.
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