In this episode, our intrepid hosts embrace a rare opportunity for sincere self-reflection, spurred by a face-to-face meeting in an inspiring ryokan in a Japanese mountain setting. The discussion delves into the nature of the podcast, audience capture, underlying motivations, and their thoughts on the journey so far and the path ahead.In an act of pure parasocial manipulation, listeners are invited to imagine the snowy ryokan landscape and 'taste' the amber liquid savoured during the conversation. And should you desire to TRULY see the location (with your eyes) photos and additional videos are up on Patreon.In any case, we genuinely do want to send a New Year note of thanks to all the listeners for their support, especially the smart ones who agree with us and recognise that Matt is the bad one.Normal decoding services to resume shortly...
Here we are in a snow falling mountain retreat in Japan dressed in onsen attire with could be mugicha, could be could be anything,
could be anything, a golden liquid with a pungent...
Couldn't possibly comment.
Couldn't comment not.
Not speaking super loudly and just not annoying people around us.
Being perfectly normal.
That's right.
We're low impact by Kokujin.
That's right.
That's what we strive for.
But yeah, it's a beautiful location.
We're here together.
Very special.
I'm in Japan.
Chris remains in Japan.
We both hang out in Tokyo.
We both have come.
It's a beautiful Nozawa.
We've done some skiing.
Chris fell down a lot.
I did.
One of us drove here in the car over several hours and the other took a luxurious train ride.
In peace.
So that might have factored in, you know.
Oh, yeah.
That's right.
You weren't at your best.
No one's judging.
Northern Irish people, were they designed for the skiing mountains?
Like living in caves.
Living in caves, hunting through forests, ambling around.
Like, yeah, you know, but...
Skating down on logs.
Is that natural?
Yeah, maybe not too much.
Okay, okay.
But that's fine.
A little bit dark.
He's just saying he's turning the lights down.
Oh good.
He's not saying shut up.
Good, I put him saying shut up.
I heard Moskwashi and usually people never talk to you.
So this is going to go mood lighting in a minute.
That might even be better.
And that's fine as long as we're not being too loud.
No, no, that's it.
Normally that's what would have happened.
Normally we get told we're too loud a lot in Japan by my wife mainly, but also sometimes by strangers.
But that was it.
But this didn't...
Oh no, it's not.
It's still...
Okay. It's fine.
It's fine.
Where were we?
We went to a bar and we did meet and had the initial, you know, the horror at seeing each other's faces and all that kind of thing.
You look like that.
But it was okay.
And we did what people probably would have requested, which was get horrendously drunk in a random, little, small, very nice pub in a cool area in Tokyo.
And it was fun.
And we did attempt to record things, as we've mentioned with other things, but it wasn't particularly coherent.
I may have picked up hand injuries, which you probably can't see on the camera, from attempting to ride a bicycle in a non-drunken way.
I was doing theory of mind.
I was like, if the police see me...
See, I adopted the alternative approach because the trains had stopped by this time and I just basically threw handfuls of money at a Tokyo taxi driver, which got me home safely, but...
No, see, I did, because I believe I was involved in that taxi journey at the start.
Did I just send you off in the direction of the taxi or didn't I speak to the taxi driver?
You put me in a taxi, yeah.
I did, yeah, so that's okay.
That was just, I was like, did I make that happen?
I'm not entirely sure what happened there, but I got a taxi back myself to the place where I live, but I remembered I need to take the bike from the station.
From my house to the station in the morning.
So the bike is parked there, so I got a ticket back.
But I could have walked it.
That was the one thing that didn't entirely.
So instead, I did realize what was happening at the time.
And then I did, like I say, fury of mind.
If I was a policeman and I was watching me, would I...
Clock me as drunken.
So how do non-drunk people cycle?
They do not cycle, like I cycled.
But there were no policemen watching, so it was okay.
Yeah, typically non-drunk cyclists don't collide into walls or whatever it is you did to...
Something.
There were flashes of...
Like, a non-drunk person wouldn't do that.
But that was very fun.
And we just now recorded something with Matt's daughter, which you will hear.
But after that, we thought we would take things down.
We'd move the lighting down, come to the snowy fall scenery and discuss.
The serious matters, Matt.
The podcast business, the discourse.
The discourse.
Discourse calls.
Discourse beckons.
Yeah.
That's right.
You know, the decoding the gurus, things like we can't say in front of other people.
It would be too much for them.
They're innocent minds.
Well, they wouldn't give a shit.
They wouldn't give a shit.
And having their fears of disgust as they look at us taking things seriously, it would be harder.
I'm trying to imagine That's the blank look on Lotta's face as we bring up some of those just nonsense that we do.
Because she's normal.
But we're not, and you're not, because you're watching this.
So let's get into it.
That's right.
So I believe, I'm pretty sure it's three years since we started the podcast.
Because we started in, is it two years?
No, it's more than that.
I have no idea.
I'm pretty sure it was September 2020.
See?
You're looking at me.
It was one of those.
So it's three or two years.
That's probably three.
But in any case, it's been a good while.
It's been longer than...
Because we've got a hundred episodes.
We're not going to have done over a hundred episodes in like two years.
No, we do like one.
We get one out every couple of weeks, right?
So, yeah.
It must be.
I mean, we're more than that with all the Patreon stuff.
But like, so it's three years.
It's three years.
Call it three.
And we're here on the annual DTG retreat.
This is where all the patrons...
That's when we built this retreat just for us.
No, this is not Patreon money.
It's a family trip that I've invaded.
But it is a reasonable time to take stock of the podcast.
How's it going?
You're alright?
You're not quitting?
I was going to say, yeah, you know, you've made me think.
You know, there's talk about three years.
Where are we going?
Are we going in circles?
Have we got rid of any gurus?
No, they're just going stronger.
Time to pull the plug, maybe.
No, no, no, no.
It'll never end.
You'll never.
You'll never.
I think the main thing, I'll speak for me and you can contradict it immediately after, but the main thing with the podcast for me is I enjoy it and I don't like all the people that we cover,
but I like talking to Matt.
I like doing the research.
It's the kind of thing I like to do, bizarrely.
And I like the feedback and stuff and the arguments that we get into.
And I like applying critical lenses to material.
That's why I'm an academic.
That's why I like the podcast thing.
And I do think that, to a certain extent, that...
The stuff that we do on the podcast, not that it makes these huge moves, but I think it does have an impact sometimes on the way that the gurus that we cover are perceived.
I'm not saying by tons of people or whatever, but I think sometimes some of the people that we cover and criticize our points that we bring up...
I do see them reflected elsewhere.
And I'm not saying that people are listening to us and then picking them up, but I think it just contributes to the general stuff around them.
So you don't need us really to tell you how much of a ghoul Scott Adams or something is, but I would say...
Some people do.
Not you.
Not you, the listener.
Some people.
But like, you know, Hooverman or something and the same thing when the very first episode that we did with like Brett and Eric and we were talking about the peer review process.
I think we had a view of that, that a lot of people that were critical of like Eric and Brett for other reasons didn't because they're approaching more from political or, you know, cultural war kind of things.
And I think that's a general tendency.
It's one of the things that lots of people don't like about us because they want us to be more...
Political or that kind of thing.
But I don't.
So I know that people think the word political and we have a political view, but we don't think it's that interesting and important.
It's not central to what we do.
No, I think that's the key thing.
I mean, like it or not, a lot of academic or scientific material is part of the fuel, the grist for...
The culture war mill, right?
And it could be, you know, vaccinations one day or it could be whatever, statistics on police brutality or whatever, you know what I mean?
But the academic evidence is something that pretty much everyone across the board makes recourse to and often misrepresents, misunderstands, whatever, uses as propaganda or selectively cherry picks some terrible quality studies.
So, you know, it's a great It's a great point to just dip in and, you know, we do this for a living, like reading literature and, you know, creating literature and collecting data and understanding what's good and bad and strong and weak about methodology.
So, you know, it can't be bad to keep on doing that.
So, yeah, have you finished?
I finished my reflection.
I just like muffled on and kept going.
You know what happened?
No, no, you hadn't.
I'd finished.
So your general reflections are welcomed as well, if you have them.
Of course I do.
Of course I do.
Or do I?
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Same as you, mainly.
It's fun.
We've continued having fun.
It's never stopped being fun.
And we've gotten slightly better at doing it when we first started, maybe.
I don't know.
You've got a better editor, no.
We do have a better editor.
I mean, not that our best editor was better.
I mean, better in comparison to me and you.
Yes, that's right.
So, yeah, I think we can make some really good stuff in the coming year with his help, because we can focus on just doing...
What we do well, and he can do the editing and do that well, which means we can produce maybe more stuff and better stuff, so that'll be good.
What else?
What else?
What else have I forgotten, Chris?
Well, I guess one of the things is the fact that we cover people, but they don't really go away.
There's never-ending supply of bullshit and gurus.
Well, yeah, it is futile in a sense, but the way you framed it, you just reminded me what I was going to comment on.
The way you framed it is correct, right?
And the good thing about, I think, being a normal kind of researcher, academic or scientist or whatever, or even in other fields too, like journalism or whatever, right?
I think normal people understand that, you know, you're not like a, I don't know, a Che Guevara or a Karl Marx or something.
Like, you're not going to revolutionize the world single-handedly.
That's the kind of thing that Brett or Eric Weinstein have wet dreams about, right?
And that's not the reality, right?
That doesn't happen.
What happens is normal everyday people, if they work relatively hard or at least consistently for a long period of time, They can move the needle by a few percent.
And that's all anybody can reasonably hope to do.
So the way you described it, which is moving the needle just a little bit.
You know what I mean?
Like some percentage of just curious or disenchanted people or whatever who come across gurus.
They also come across us and whatever.
And you divert a certain percentage of them.
To a certain degree, some gurus are kind of aware that there are people like us paying attention.
And calling them out.
God, I hate that phrase.
I know what you mean, though.
You know what I mean.
Which actually causes them to ratchet things down a little bit.
You could probably pick out a bunch of other beneficial impacts.
And that's, you know, it's only moving the needle, but I mean, I'm happy with that.
That's good.
Yeah, because it goes in both ways.
I think neither of us approach it from the point of view of feeling that we are particularly strong activists.
But we do have a strong interest in the topic and opinions, right?
Like, you know, we're not neutral and they actually don't have neutral and far-right apologetics or far-left apologetics for that manner.
And so our opinions are going to come through.
But expounding, but broadcasting or propagandising those opinions is not why we're doing the podcast.
No, it's the, like, it is because our...
Our personalities and interests are towards being analytical of the kind of content that we cover.
And that's why we're going to keep doing it.
And the fact that people like it and listen, and we aren't.
Because if we were doing that and nobody was...
Listening, I might actually still be doing it because I definitely still be listening to the people writing things on Twitter and that, but it is helpful for motivation that people respond and like it.
But I think we would still do it if we had like 24. Our initial goal, genuinely, was that we were expecting a couple of hundred of people and we wanted to try and get 50 people for the theater, so it wasn't embarrassing.
That's right.
We're really afraid about starting up the Patreon because we thought, you know, we're going to have like 13 people.
We'll donate at them.
Out of sympathy.
Exactly.
My mom.
She doesn't need to do it.
So in that respect, the podcast is way more successful than we ever envisioned it to be.
And that's a very good thing.
But I like to think that we have tried to keep the attitude that we're not...
Viewing it as, like, we're empire builders and we're, you know, like, because there's danger that way.
And I'm not saying, therefore, don't take things seriously, you know, don't try to do things well.
But I mean, like, there is a balance to be struck between the, like, starting to take yourself as a very serious figure that has...
It's almost in the attitude, right?
You know, like, it's just that you...
I feel the same way when it comes to academic stuff as well.
I think you should have ambition and interest and stuff.
But there's nothing wrong with contributing a replication study which is well done and shows well-earned effect is there, as opposed to being the person who develops the theory or those kind of things.
I feel like we are talking about secular gurus and the gurometer concept is capturing things that we've noticed, but we're relying on a whole bunch of concepts and literature that already exist.
It's very much not a beast just on our insights alone.
It's because of the fact that you've studied psychology, I've studied anthropology.
You've read all these papers and these are things that people have identified.
The other podcasts that I admire the most...
Not just in terms of their content, but in terms of their attitude, are the ones where it's an absolute labour of love.
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, like, you know, God, you always make fun of me when I pick podcasts that I've listened to.
Are you going to say about...
It's a history podcast.
I happen to be listening to the History of It in Egypt podcast.
It's a young guy.
He's obsessed about the history of Egypt.
He freaking loves it.
He loves the history of Egypt and that's why he's making the podcast because he just loves the history of Egypt and knows everything about it and just records really nice episodes telling you about the history of Egypt and other people like to hear him tell them about it and that is it.
There's nothing else.
He's not going to change the world.
He's not, you know what I mean?
He's not some amazing sage or some brilliant think of it, whatever.
He's just a guy that likes the history of Egypt.
Just amazed a lot about it.
I mean, I like...
We're just normal men.
There's that little internet meme that just always gets me with the puppet, right?
You know what I mean?
We're just ordinary men.
We're just like...
If you haven't seen that, you should look up that meme that we're just ordinary men.
That's what we're referring to.
But nonetheless, Nevertheless, I think that is funny for a whole bunch of other reasons, but the basic message of "we're just ordinary men, we're just ordinary people, just academics", that is,
I think, a good attitude to have and it is in the year.
To come, I have things that I want to do, including finally publish the paper, right?
And on the other hand, we'll cover people that we wanted to cover.
We'll have interviews with people.
As the patrons probably know, we will have a start of the year with round two with Sam Harris, right?
But these are like...
They're all just, for me, just doing the normal...
You know, there are things that I want to do, but I'm not like viewing it of the, "Okay, man, by quarter two, we've got to be up the metrics, like 60K up, and when we get this guy, he's going to blow us into the room."
Like, it's not Constantine with Francis' energy, right?
We can't even withhold the excitement of, you know, but if we had Doug this morning, it would be good.
It's not why we do it, but imagine if we had anyone.
Or we can get someone horrible, like Constantine, get him back on, it'll be fine.
It'll be all over YouTube.
I mean, that's not the way we do it.
That's the horrible thing.
That's the thing I never want to happen.
But that's the new media, isn't it?
I guess media has always been about people buying newspapers or tuning in and getting ratings or whatever.
So there's always been that populist factor, right?
Like what's going to appeal?
What's going to get eyeballs?
What's going to get bums on seats?
And the independent online media sphere is just that on steroids because they're directly plugged in.
The metrics are in their veins.
Yeah, I mean, you see it with so many just ambitious people, I guess.
And it's nothing wrong.
It's not very wrong.
It's not wrong to be ambitious.
It's your career.
That could be your career, right?
And that could be that the metrics going up is what you need.
Yeah, to have a living doing this job, right?
That's...
I get it.
It doesn't mean you're a bad person.
No, but often they...
It sometimes does.
We're not going to name any names, but there are people that we're both acquainted to, that we've had...
People approach you and they want to come on.
Oh, right, yeah, yeah.
And you understand why the way they want...
I'll invite you on our podcast and it's a normal thing because they're wanting to network and they view a shared interest, but we generally don't like that.
And we appreciate that the reason we can't say no is that we have other jobs and this is a side hobby thing.
Yeah, that's helpful.
But even then, I think in general, I'm just very wary of that.
A similar point is you've said in other occasions offline and whatnot that a good thing is not to try and optimize for getting the most positive feedback or the most controversial feedback or that kind of thing.
Because that happens.
It just depends on the episode.
Whether there'll be 10 comments or there'll be 100.
It all depends, right?
And there will always be some people that are very annoyed at what you're doing or think that you're missing the key points, even if they like you or whatever, and all the people that hate you and think you're a terrible person.
And that will always happen, especially as audiences get a little bigger.
But the better metric, and I agree with it, and it doesn't apply with whether the person is an influential, well-known person or an unknown.
Person, right?
Like just somebody, you know, randomly that sends an email or whatever.
But it's people who you kind of respect.
Yeah, his opinion you respect.
His opinion you respect, who seem reasonable.
And if they're generally saying, you know, I like what you're doing, and then you're kind of like, well, that's who I like.
And it could be like a dozen, a couple of dozen people, but, you know, it can change, right?
But if a significant proportion of them, Where they go, "Ah, gee, I mean, guys..."
Yeah, yeah, why are you doing that?
It doesn't mean that you need to stop it, but it will give you more pause.
Just stop and think.
But this is not the same as Brett Weinstein's saying.
When everyone says, "Rock, I know I'm doing stuff like that."
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying, like, you shouldn't be led around by...
Metrics.
Audience dynamics and metrics because therein lies, like the black hole of...
Of whatever particular niche you're in and we're in a critical...
You know, a space which is critical of a whole bunch of different people or whatever.
Like, if we were doing the History of Egypt podcast, this wouldn't be an issue, right?
Yeah, but no, I'm sure.
I'm sure that someone was like, "Ramses the third, do you think?"
Like, we just don't know the ins and outs of the, like, Egyptology field.
I'm sure there are people that are like, "Oh, you had that dick?"
So, it probably, it's probably just, it always seems like, but it's that thing that, like, that Egyptology guy.
I don't know, I haven't listened to this podcast, but I imagine that kind of person, they're making a podcast about Egyptality because they like Egypt, and they would care about feedback from people whose books they respect and whatever.
Oh yeah, if they got...
Told that they were wrong about some factoid about Ramses III or whatever by a professor of...
Right.
But if hundreds of readers are saying, why are you fucking talking about Egypt?
They shouldn't care.
That's the correct attitude.
Why not the Assyrians?
The Greeks!
The Japanese history is interesting.
I think we're meandering.
Yeah, that's right.
We are.
This is what people want and we'll keep up.
We'll keep it tight.
The 30-minute thing.
So the thing to announce as the podcast isn't ending yet.
We still have life left in our old bones for the minute.
There's plenty of people that we want to cover.
And generally one of those things is like sometimes there's stuff in the culture or the current thing that we think it's good to cover or that we want to cover.
And sometimes there's people that are just left field that we're interested in.
It's interesting.
And I think...
You know, it may be the case.
I generally don't know this, but like that those episodes, you know, people don't pay as much attention or they're not as many downloads or whatever.
But in that case, like, I don't...
I feel it's a much healthier thing to be...
Doing them and to be that being the thing which motivates you.
The ultimate parameter should just be what interests you and what you think is good.
Yeah, because otherwise Miles will stop doing that.
Exactly.
If I get bored.
If I get bored.
It's all over.
And if Matt goes, just to mention, there's no way I'm monologuing.
I hate monologuing.
It might not seem it, but I really...
You need somebody to look at while he's monologuing?
I gotta judge.
Is someone paying attention?
I can't feel it without...
So yeah, so the podcast is going to be around.
We'll just get you a Mr. Potato Head to...
AI Matt!
There's a funny thing where I wanted to add in a point in an episode recently that I forgot to say, right?
And I recorded it and sent it to the editor.
And he inserted it, and then he moved some of the parts where you were agreeing to say, like, yeah, that's a good point, Chris.
So with the material you've already given us, Matt, we can probably construct it.
I'm done.
Yeah, well, okay, this is good, because any time you've heard me agree to something...
It's probably AI.
...terrible, that Chris might have said on the podcast.
It's probably I. It wasn't me.
Look, and that wasn't unethical because I actually had already said that point to Matt and he had agreed with it.
Now, the other there didn't know that.
Nonetheless, he intuited that you would agree.
I would have agreed with that kind of thing.
Yeah, you did.
No, I think that's fair.
Both of you, you're mental models of me.
I mean, I'm not that complicated.
It wasn't a very controversial point, Elor.
So, yeah.
That's it.
But, well, yeah, look, I agree.
I reckon next year, what is it, 2024?
Yeah, we're in 2024 now.
It's now.
It's happening.
Yeah, more of the same.
More, well, that's what everyone wants to hear.
More of the same.
More of the same.
It's just round and round it goes.
Samsara.
We're all here.
But, you know, I think a medley.
A mix.
A medley, yeah.
It's good to have some absolute freaks.
Some absolutely terrible, awful people.
Occasionally.
Bit of spice.
Some people that, you know, it's kind of good, kind of bad, you know.
Some people are just kind of interesting, like, I don't know, a bit of food for thought.
I'd say Peter Singer, for instance.
I like the Daniel Dennett episode.
They say stuff and we got to think about it.
And, you know, it helped the listeners think about it.
We'll do Sean Carroll.
We'll think about it together, basically.
Sean Carroll.
Yeah, and then people that are kind of probably, almost certainly bonafide pretty good, like Sean Carroll.
Well, let's see.
It's a bit boring when they're good, right?
Don't advertise the episode like that.
It's a bit of a bad way to start the year, but that's how we're going to do it.
So that's it.
But that's the thing.
It's a medley.
It's a medley.
Yeah, you've got to think about it like a stir fry.
You can't just have allspice.
You can burn your face off.
That's right.
Eat some chicken as well.
Yeah, you drink a lot of whiskey.
Should have a glass of water.
Should have had a glass of water that night.
We should have.
We should have.
But yeah, so anyway.
Thank you all for being patrons or listeners or wherever this goes out.
That's it.
And, you know, if you're one of the listeners we respect, thank you for that.
And if we're one of the ones we don't, well, you know, it's nice that you listen and you can give us your feedback and I'll absorb it and respond aggressively online.
So thank you for that because that fuels me as well.
He likes both kinds.
Both kinds, yeah.
And for the very special people that have been with us, following us, it's a start three years or even two years.
You're pretty special.
One year, yeah, you're not that special, but thank you anyway.
Jumping on the bandwagon.
Jumping on the bandwagon.
All your friends are doing it.
You're doing it too.
Yeah, kids.
The kids want to stay up there.
Let's just go to the cruise.
Thank you for listening to us for however many hours that you do a month.
Yeah.
And we'll make the accents 10% wackier this year just for you.
