'Tis a New Year (sort of), and amidst all the chaos in the world, we thought we'd offer a small glimmer of light by making this Patreon episode available to everyone! If you enjoy it, consider joining us on Patreon—or not, it's your call!In this episode, Matt and Chris scry through the portents and ponder the apocalyptic insights of the tech and finance titan Peter Thiel. We all know that Thiel is an urbane gentleman of great refinement with a collection of revolutionary ideas but does he make the Gurometer sing? Tune in to find out—and, as a bonus, learn more than you ever wanted to know about the intricacies of academic grading systems.
Someone of great learning, insight, with a man who has revolutionized several fields that he's been involved with.
And today he will be discussing with us apocalyptic figures and prophecies from the Bible.
Matthew Brown, welcome.
Welcome to Decoding the Guru's Gurometer Edition.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
Clearly you're familiar with my work.
I'm glad about that.
Yeah, I'm happy to be here.
Happy to dispense my wisdom.
I've got so much wisdom accrued from the school of hard knocks throughout my life.
You were, I feel, too coherent.
And not enough halting there to ape Peter Thiel.
There should have been more, oh, well, the thing is that, yeah, the Bible.
Well, actually, we've got to go back to some guy you've never heard of.
We've got to talk about him first.
Why is no one talking about this, Matt?
Why is no one talking about this?
There's no one talking about it.
Yeah, we did Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel.
How can a man be...
So inarticulate and yet also such a blathering mess.
He should at least have the decency to be eloquent like a Jordan Peterson or even a Weinstein.
I'll hand it to them.
I do feel that it was right to do him and Curtis Jarvin as a package deal because they are essentially mirror images of each other, right?
Like some of them have distributed their ability points in slightly different stacks, but they're...
Fundamentally very similar.
Intellectual powerhouses of the new right, as some dare to say.
But today, Matt, we are entering them into that sweet science of gurometry.
We're going to take them a couple of rounds, teach them a thing or two about what it takes to be a real secular guru.
Are you top tier, Peter Thiel?
Are you?
Let's see.
It's like if you took all the best bits of alchemy and phrenology and mashed them together, you'd get the Garometer.
It's a science.
It's a science.
Only you and I are doing it at the moment.
So far.
The publications are panting.
Someone's got to be first.
Yeah.
And Matt, I know we're not allowed to do this.
I know it's forbidden by the Decoding the Guru's High Council.
But can I just say, would you allow me to say, That I saw Andrew Huberman tweeting out a heartfelt story.
He saw a new generation of hard problem solvers.
This little documentary, short essay about Luc Farrator.
It's this senior at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, who was digitizing old texts and using AI technology to look through them.
I just want to give credit to Andrew Huberman for shouting out random students and inspiring stories.
There's no other...
Oh, wait.
This is Luke Veritor, who is now on the Doge team.
Oh, right.
That might be why Huberman is tweeting out, awesome story, the next generation of hard problem solvers is here.
So, yes, that would be it, wouldn't it?
He's just trying to be a sycophantic lickspittle.
For Elon Musk.
Sorry, I retract that.
They're all so predictable, Matt.
They're all so predictable.
Look, Chris, these are all strong, powerful, vigorous, innovative men.
Of course they have high regard for each other.
That's just how it works.
Like recognizes like.
Game recognizes game.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
But we're not here.
This isn't a supplementary material.
What are we doing?
We're not here to sling shit at random percentages.
No, we've got my specific target.
Yeah, that's right.
Peter Thiel is going to be upset.
We're not paying him all the attention that he warrants.
Right, yes.
Our task today is to enter him into the Garometer and figure out where he lands.
So, Chris, the first entry...
Where do we start now?
Where do we start?
Well, we start at the beginning, naturally, which is galaxy brainness.
Galaxy brainness.
This is that kind of, you know, you're spinning off on all different, you've got opinions on every different topic.
It's all spread around.
You've got opinions about religion, you've got opinions about technology.
Gee, where am I thinking of these examples from?
Anyway, you've got opinions on a bunch of topics and maybe they're all linked together.
Biblical prophecies!
Yeah.
I mean, just to take another random example.
Yeah, that's the thing.
So anyway, claiming to have some sort of deep insight across a wide variety.
Did we sometimes call this polymathry?
We claim polymathic ability.
Yeah, I like that.
If you've got an academic audience and you're a bit worried, you might blow their mind with the galaxy brain meme that you can say claim polymathic ability.
With all these scores, we score them on a scale of 1 to 5. Where do you land?
Where do I land?
Well, hold your horses.
Let's consider it.
Well, first of all, Peter Thiel, he actually, in that episode, expressed a fair bit of respect for the polymathic man.
Remember, he lamented the sad soloization of modern science.
You know, back in the good old days, you would have a philosopher.
He'd be, you know, figuring out what's going on in the minds of women one day and the next day doing...
Mathematical theorems, and then the next day figuring out physics, figuring out that everything is made of water or something.
You know, that's back when men were real men.
Building a bridge.
Yeah, that's...
Building a bridge.
Using Pepakis' theorem to work out the angles, for example.
Just an example of the ability that polymorphic genius grants you.
But the trick is, is the bridge is also made of water.
So, you know, it's like everything is...
I mean, the modern theory is everything is made of cake.
The Greeks have their own versions of this.
Anyway, look, I don't want to diss the Greeks.
They also thought that everything was made of atoms, which, yeah, kind of got that one.
Right.
Is he like this?
Is he galaxy-brained?
Yeah, five.
I unlocked it in.
Five.
And certainly his interviewer praised him.
A fair bit along those sorts of grounds.
What a guy.
What a guy.
This is a guy whose brain can encompass so many different things.
Just one of the deep thinkers of our time.
Good.
Well, he's five.
Do you want to say anything about it or I just want to say five?
No, I just wanted to mention as well, one person on Twitter was responding to the episode by saying, oh, Peter Robinson, you guys don't understand.
He's the speechwriter that said...
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.
He wrote that speech, Matt.
And I was like...
This is the interviewer.
This is the guy that wrote the speech.
And he came up with it.
How did he come up with that phrase?
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.
I mean, that is poetry.
That changes everything.
I retract all my critical comments about him.
Like, he came up with that line.
Jesus Christ.
So, yeah.
Anyway, welcome feedback.
But no, that doesn't change my...
My view of Peter Robinson.
And for anyone who doesn't get it, that phrase is memorable because of the events surrounding it.
Yeah, the end of the Cork War, the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Ronald Reagan said something pithy.
It wasn't the phrase.
It wasn't the amazing eloquence, the amazing brains that went into the phrase that made it memorable.
We just...
It became memorable because of the circumstances.
Would anybody have remembered if it wasn't for Peter Robinson?
It's hard to say.
It's hard to say.
He could have said, you know, Mr. Gorbachev, set your people free.
And it would have been just as memorable, you know?
Anyway, whatever.
Well, that's it.
Feedback.
We welcome feedback.
Thank you very much.
Now, the second feature on the Gorometer is cultishness.
Building insular communities, praising people within those communities as the insightful truth-seekers, while those on the outside are bad faith actors that want to tear you down and you position yourself as a kind of charismatic authority.
Chris, I see that I gave Curtis Yavin just three for this, which I kind of regret because, I mean, look, these are broad themes, right?
And, you know, we've talked about this before, but cultishness.
You can think about it more broadly.
It's almost like a social, kind of pernicious way of thinking about social relations and groups and hierarchies and stuff like that in a way that is very self-serving.
You can frame it very generally like that.
I realize that both Curtis Yavin and Peter Thiel believe in this kind of aristocracy of ultra-talent.
It's an aristocracy that includes them.
And they're good friends, like Elon Musk and so on.
Probably doesn't include schmucks like you and me.
And that is, it's a kind, I mean, you see it.
There is a cult develops around that.
Like they're super fans, other peasants like us, who idolize these people because almost by vicariously wanting to be a part of this elite club.
Yeah, I think it's a kind of cultishness.
So I think even though he...
You know, it didn't seem...
Like, he didn't do the sort of blatant, like...
Emotionally manipulative rhetoric.
Yes, yes.
Like, that sort of, like, you know, parasocial stuff targeted at his fans.
Because he doesn't really have fans, right?
He's a billionaire, right?
He's just a...
He's not a podcaster or something.
I mean, he does have fans, but yes, he's not like...
He's not cultivating an audience like a Brett Weinstein.
Russell Brand or something.
No, Russell Brand.
No.
So, yeah.
So, not cultish in that sense, but...
Their mental view of society and groups and where their privilege plays within it.
Yeah, it is kind of culty.
So I'm going to give them a four.
And can I change Curtis up to four?
I want to buck up to four because I didn't really think about that then.
Yeah, that's fine.
Am I allowed?
I don't need to change anything.
Do we need to make any?
Yeah, you can.
No, you can do that.
I'll load it down in the meetings for this month.
Yeah, article.
Yeah, the Curtis up there.
But I will know my...
I already gave him...
Both of them four.
So, yeah, you're correcting your errors, but you're really only catching up to the correct score.
So, yeah, he gets a four because he encourages that and because he builds a whole Lost Boy ecosystem around himself, right?
There's a lot of sycophantic, insular thinking in Peter Thiel's various companies.
So, yeah, he deserves that.
And the established...
Oh, sorry, this is your turn, but I'm going to steal it and I'll give you the next one.
So, anti-establishmentarianism, you know, reactive dismissal of all institutions and authorities.
Institutions and stuff is like, you know, down the perilous road towards one world government and the Antichrist.
Yeah, as we talked about, that stupid thing where he wants us to, you know, like restore ancient churches and not.
But he's bored.
The buildings haven't been updated in 30 years.
Let me put it this way.
He's anti this establishment.
Like the establishment that exists in this world now, he's anti that one.
Yeah, he's got some theoretical alternative establishment.
Yeah, he's also relatively pro certain aspects of the current.
Like, he likes most billionaires that have a libertarian mindset, right?
Like, he's fine with those guys.
So it's not like he's rebelling against everything.
That's right.
It's like Trump is anti-establishment, right?
And Elon, right?
Yes.
They're literally running the government of the United States, but they're also, yeah, whatever.
Yeah, I'm giving them a five.
So yeah, nobody tried to quibble with me about that one.
He's a five.
That's correct.
What is the next characteristic?
Okay, the next one is grievance mongering.
Three facets to this, as I always like to say.
You've got your own personal tale of grievance.
So you've been hard done by inculcating a sense of grievance amongst your followers.
This is what they took from this kind of thing.
And what was the third one?
Is it the list of enemies?
Like having your kind of personal...
Your hit list, right?
Yeah, having a list.
Like, who's the president and had a list?
Nixon.
Nixon, yeah.
Tricky dick.
He had some grievances.
He did have some grievances.
He did.
No, well...
When you find it out like that, Matt...
You know, when you have all of those laid out, inculcating a sense that you've been personally wronged, I feel like Thiel is a little bit...
He dropped out of university, I think, didn't he?
And he now rages against universities as being useless and all that kind of thing.
So, I mean, I think there is an element of that, at least in his narrative.
Well, I mean, I'd cast that more along the anti-establishment terrorism stuff, right?
Saying that the universities have failed, don't bother going to them and stuff.
So, like, yes, you could say that him saying that the institutions are failing and it's all falling apart or going the wrong path, you could say, oh, then people are going to feel aggrieved about that.
But I'm going to give him a low score on this one because I don't think he fits it.
Matt, I just want to make...
It's clear that actually he did graduate from Stanford Law School.
So I was fed fake news by people commenting on Thiel saying this was part of his thing.
Because I had this feeling that Peter Robinson and him were talking about him graduating from Stanford.
Anyway, so fake news, just correcting that, right?
Okay, correcting that live as we go.
He did graduate from Stanford, regardless of his T levels.
And for that error, I'm going to...
Knocked on my grievance mongering.
2.5.
2.5.
I'm going to put 4. I think he does have it, but I do think it's not a distinguishing characteristic.
What say you?
I'm going to give him a 1 because I'm not afraid to give a 1 if I don't see evidence of something.
So I'm going to give him a 1. I see evidence of it, so I'm just being kind.
Self-aggrandizement and narcissism.
This speaks for itself.
I don't think we need to explain to people what self-aggrandizement and narcissism means.
But is Thiel, like he's someone that has a very high impression of themselves, but in terms of behaving in a way, you know, I don't see narcissism about just having like a positive self-image of yourself and thinking you're smart,
right?
It's beyond that.
And I'm just...
Thinking, like, with all the other gurus, how he comes across.
And he's in no way hesitant to give his opinion and to regard it as, like, weedy and important.
But is he someone that comes across as incredibly narcissistic when you have, like, Jordan Peterson and whatnot in the mix?
What do you say?
It's hard to say, isn't it?
I guess in many ways he's similar to someone like Elon Musk.
Yeah.
Who is one of the movers and shakers.
Yeah, I know.
But Elon Musk is beyond that.
He's also incredibly insecure, right?
So he's also that and more.
But, you know, okay, maybe he's a bad example.
But some other billionaire.
Whatever.
You could almost pick any billionaire.
What about a Rupert Murdoch?
He certainly has a high opinion of himself.
We gave Andrew Rupert 1.5.
Oof.
Did we?
Holy shit.
Yeah, well, that was back then.
That was in the interview with him and talking to Peter Adia.
I feel like Huberman would be up several rungs now.
But anyway, I was looking for someone else, you know, to mention as an example.
I was like, woof!
That was underestimating his arrogance.
But yeah.
It happens occasionally.
So, yeah, I'm not sure where to place him there because I reckon he's totally, like, he clearly overestimates his own abilities.
Massively.
He believes what the interviewer was saying about him, that he is one of the world's greatest thinkers today, really grappling with the key issues, confronting humanity, one of the few people with the ability to do that.
But I don't think he feels the need to...
Like self-promote?
Yeah, because he doesn't need to amplify that, I guess he's secure in his delusional...
Self-confidence.
Yes, to cure narcissism, which isn't something that typically has succeeded with narcissistic people.
I think having over a billion dollars helps with that.
That's what I think.
Well, but it doesn't seem to help people like Elon Musk.
Well, Elon Musk is unusual amongst billionaires for being so needy.
So look, I don't know.
I guess I'm going to have to give him the two because he just...
I should have predicted that.
It doesn't quite fit.
Yeah.
Just one lower than you.
You could predict that.
Yeah.
I should have just wrote it for you.
Well, Matt, can you foretell what the next feature is?
Do you foresee it on the horizon?
Cassandra Complex?
Yeah.
You're asking for the next category?
Good job.
Good job.
You made it sound like some sort of mystery.
Yeah, that was the point.
Cassandra Complex.
Warning.
Oh.
Oh, I see.
Well done.
Well done.
Sorry.
Okay.
So this is the foretelling of doom, warning of terrible things that are going to happen.
This is often the emotional hook that gurus have that make their ideas so fascinating to us because who doesn't want to know?
About the terrible things that are going to happen next week, next month, or next year.
The apocalypse, the Antichrist.
Yeah, the apocalypse, perhaps.
The Antichrist coming.
You know, nuclear war.
AI gone amok.
Someone warning about these things that could be happening and giving you some sort of special insight to maybe help us prepare for this.
Would he be doing that, Chris, do you think?
Beep!
Five.
Very much so.
It's obvious.
Incredible.
Incredible.
I'd like to give him a seven.
It doesn't go up to seven, but I think it should be like the dials on that, you know, going up to 11, like the spinal tap.
I think occasionally the garrometer should go up to six.
Six, yeah.
Well, unfortunately, we can't instigate that now because it will mess up everything, but it's unfortunate.
But he is, like, just imagine he actually is a six, even though it's a five.
Yeah, imagine he's a six.
Okay, so five, I agree.
Okay, next one, Chris.
What would it be?
Revolutionary theories, like believing that you have these insights that are very important.
It's not just that you're giving ideas and talking about topics, but you have come up with these novel insights that would revolutionize fields.
It could change the world if people would only hear you out and focus on what you're doing.
Yeah, so this is interesting because I think Thiel is very much a purveyor of revolutionary theories, but he's kind of a conduit for others.
You know, like, he likes to be the kind of kingmaker or the man behind the throne pushing certain ideas forward.
However, I think his whole shit with life extension and...
Various ideas around, like, the Bible and whatnot.
That all counts.
That counts, right?
He thinks this stuff about the Antichrist of these gods is incredibly important and insightful.
So, for that reason, I'm going to put him at the tippy-top here.
I'm going to go five.
I'm going to go five for that.
Well, I completely agree.
I mean, we write this revolutionary theories thing, not...
On whether or not it really is a revolutionary theory.
Yes, let's be clear.
Let's be clear.
Whether or not they present it as such.
It's almost certainly not.
So, yeah, like you said, he is very much a derivative type of thinker.
He just picks like a magpie at little bits, probably misunderstands them and dumbs them down and recycles them from other bad thinkers.
But in the breathless tones that it was presented in that interview, very much.
As a revolutionary theory.
I mean, it's so out of left field.
I mean, would you have thought of this, Chris?
Using Bible prophecies to try to understand how we can prepare for technologically mediated Armageddon?
You wouldn't, would you?
No, I wouldn't have.
You don't have the brain for it.
I would have predicted that a bunch of billionaires would find that something worth doing, but nevertheless...
He gets a five from me.
He gets a five from me on that.
Yeah, we're not screwing me.
That's screwing you.
He's clearly a five on that.
Okay, this will be a fun one.
It's you to profound bullshit, Chris.
It's you to profound bullshit.
It's not only the turn of phrase, the use of acronyms or sciency jargon, all that stuff, but also I think that just that general stylistic way in which you present yourself as someone who's uttering incredibly profound,
incredibly insightful stuff.
Putting lipstick on a pig.
Intellectually speaking.
So, what have you to say about this?
He does that.
He does that a lot.
And in this particular material we covered, it was aided and abetted by Peter Robinson.
But I have heard it aided and abetted by almost everyone that talks the tale.
And he is all too happy to go along with that, right?
So, again...
There's a reason that says pseudo-profound, right?
So Thiel certainly thinks he's providing parts of wisdom, but it is often very bog-standard, reactionary, libertarian stuff dressed up with technobabble and biblical references.
So, five!
It's a five for me!
Yeah, I'm not going to reprise the episode, but Yvonne remembers the episode.
We remember what happened.
We were all there.
The substance to what he was saying was laughably thin and just plain silly.
I know that I've got a bad habit of just calling stuff stupid when I should explain the reasons why, but honestly, come on.
Biblical prophecies, fine readings of some random snippets from the Bible and then having your own bespoke interpretation of this and then...
It not even coming together into any kind of coherent set of things, setting up this weird dichotomies of the fucking Armageddon and the Antichrist, like absolute nonsense, yet it's presented with just that breathless seriousness and the references to the very important thinkers.
Have you read such and such?
He's got some great thoughts on this topic.
The presentation was amusingly in contrast.
With the substance.
So, yeah, I think that's a good example of pseudo-profound bullshit.
He gets a five again from me.
He's scoring pretty high.
He's doing pretty well.
Yes, so he did get a five from me as well, so we're in simpatico.
Now, the next category, Matt.
Conspiracy mongering.
Is he someone prone to conspiratorial thinking and the promotion of conspiracy theories?
Unlike what Michael Shermer has argued, this is not simply people applying reasonable heuristics to be skeptical and noting that conspiracies exist.
It is, in fact, over applying heuristics around detecting conspiracies and promoting them without care for the level of veracity and evidence supporting them.
And yeah, again, just for me.
This is very easy.
He is a conspiracy theorist like Joe Rogan is, like so many of them are in this sphere.
I think he's five on this.
Yeah.
Just remind me, Chris, what are some conspiratorial things that he talked about?
Remind the listeners.
Well, in our particular episode, most of the conspiracies were hypothetically the Antichrist's plots, right?
He does regard, you know, things like climate change activism and regards things about the deep state to be true and all that kind of thing.
Like if you see him on Rogan or, you know, he mentioned the Wuhan lab and the bioweapons, right?
Just offhand as an example.
Like he's a credulous buffoon.
And yeah, he is conspiracy prone.
Yeah, yeah, I hear.
And like, you know, I've studied conspiracy theories a fair bit in psychology.
And, you know, it's a bit like there's a lot of other concepts, too, where you can define them in different ways.
Like with cultishness, I quite like to have a somewhat broader understanding of these concepts, because you can define conspiracies as being, oh, that's very specifically about, you know, imagining that there's a small group of people with nefarious things, blah, blah, blah, doing stuff in secret.
And definitions like that are kind of problematic in and of themselves.
It's more about the...
The cognitive processes, the conspiratorial ideation, we say, that is more important.
And there is a degree of skepticism and cynicism which, taken to the nth degree, becomes basically a perfect example about conspiratorial ideation.
So when he talks about, oh, you know, all the physicists, like they're all just pretending to do physics, they're really just doing these things, you know, shuffling papers around, and really what they're trying to do is skip.
Research money and they don't care about that, right?
It may not fit the archetypal definition of a conspiracy, but it's exactly the same kind of reasoning.
So, yeah.
Anyway, long story short, I'm going to give them a five.
Yeah, okay.
Well, that's good.
You give them the correct mark.
I'm glad to see that.
Look at this pressure.
Everyone notices I'm continually under pressure to conform.
This is cultishness right here.
Well, you went back.
And replace your own score.
Well, that was self.
That was organic.
Was it?
You don't influence me.
You're not trapped here with me, Chris.
You're not the boss of me.
Other way around.
Yes.
I know.
I have my own thoughts.
And I outrank you anyway.
And I'm older than you.
True.
That's some respect.
That's some respect.
Okay.
What's next, Matt?
What's the next feature?
It's the second to last one.
It's the second to last one, and it is grifting, or what is it?
Excessive profiteering?
Profiteering.
Right.
So we're not talking about his business activities.
We can't comment on that.
It may well have been characterized by excessive profiteering.
But look, I'm just going to talk at the top of my head here, Chris, but I think he's not about that because he's already bloody rich, right?
He's incredibly rich.
There is nothing that he could possibly...
He could be earning Joe Rogan money from a podcast, and it would be another drop in the bucket.
So I think this is almost non-applicable, but we don't have that, so I'd just give him a one.
Same thing.
I'd give him a one because I think his companies are doing various forms of profiteering, but he himself, he's not out chilling for Dragon's Breath supplements or this kind of thing, or releasing Peter Thiel.
Hoodies or whatever the case is.
So he is a billionaire who makes his money from his investments and his, you know, funds and all that kind of thing.
But this is just to make clear, this is actually a useful example, right?
We have a very rich man with low actions to lots of resources, but he's not going to score highly on this for you or me.
In fact, I'm going to give him a one on this because I haven't seen evidence for him engaging in...
Profiteering in the sense that we mean.
Why would he?
Why would he?
There's absolutely no reason to.
But why would so many of them?
I guess because Huberman endorses everything under the sun.
He's a millionaire now, Matt.
He has tons of income.
Does he need that?
Chris, your mind cannot encompass the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire.
A millionaire like Huberman.
Still hungry, right?
He can still get a bigger bloody mansion.
He wants to have a nice apartment in New York as well.
Or his 10 girlfriends.
Yeah, that's right.
He wants to have...
Because two would be better, right, Chris?
I mean, six would be better.
That's another deep cut.
But, you know, when you have Peter Thiel money, then there is...
You're right.
There is nothing that can happen.
There are levels.
There's nothing that can happen in terms of subscribers or advertising revenue.
It's just not going to happen.
But Coffezilla...
Explain this to us well, right?
Because I was making out this point that sometimes people's behavior seems like hard to explain.
Like Jordan Peterson, why is he doing all those stupid promotional courses or whatever?
Why does he have all these like little business making schemes when he's already hugely rich, hugely successful?
He's set for life.
He doesn't need to do anything.
And CoffeeZilla's point was you are not noticing that these people are comparing themselves to Other people within their network.
So their view, their comparison group is other people at their status, right?
What's their deal?
How much money are they making?
And that kind of thing.
And there's a competitive drive within that, right?
Within influencers and all this kind of thing.
So Peter Thiel might have that drive against other billionaires.
Yeah, but you're missing my point.
Peter Thiel may well want to be even richer.
I don't know how rich he is compared to, say, George Soros or Musk, but I don't think he's as rich as them.
He may well want to be richer than his peers, but he's not going to get that from advertising.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, that's not that kind of money.
Yeah, anyway.
Agreed.
Okay, all right, good.
We're being very argumentative.
Splitting hairs over nothing.
We're just helping people understand.
We're in serious agreement.
Helping them understand.
That's right.
Will you allow me?
Will you allow me to give people one?
People aren't talking enough about how we give people one in this category.
So, yeah, the last category, Neuma, the final nail on the coffin, if you will, is moral grandstanding.
Setting yourself up as a moral exemplar who stands above all our men.
And it is man, by and large.
Judging them, you know, not quite worthy.
And looking down on the other people who aren't quite as morally elevated as you in their concerns and their tastes.
Yeah, that's right.
Just to remind people, examples always help.
I think Jordan Peterson is pretty big on the moral grandstanding.
Abram Kendi, Robert D 'Angelo.
Robert D 'Angelo as well.
That's right.
So it's definitely a thing that lefties are known for doing.
It's also a thing that people on the right like Jordan Peterson have found a way to do as well.
Now, Teal.
Teal.
Yeah.
I'm leaning towards no, I have to tell you.
Well, me too.
In much the same way with Curtis Jarvin, I think he regards it as that he's beyond the normal constraints of morality.
So it's not that he's extra moral.
It's that he's beyond Your petty moral concerns.
Yeah, which makes sense.
Yeah, I think, although he certainly presents himself as someone who is spending a lot of time worrying and thinking about the end of humanity, biblical prophecies and potential risks and so on, by tackling the big questions that are essential for humanity.
And that's something that a good person would do.
But I think...
You know, he's not handing that up, I think.
I think that's genuinely what he sees his contribution as being.
I mean, yeah, I don't think he's grandstanding.
He just has his head up his own ass a bit.
Yeah, he's a different theme.
We don't have a criteria for that head-up arsonessness.
No, head-up arsonessness.
That's a meta dimension on the gravity, which I think they all tend to...
It's like Eliza Yudkowsky, right?
Eliza Yudkowsky is obsessed with AI Doom.
You know, he's genuine about that.
Anyway, whatever.
But he is a moral, I understand.
Well, this is why we need to go back and add these all in.
But, yeah, I agree.
Yudkowsky is genuine under that fedora.
All right, so I'm giving the one there.
So he got two ones.
He got two ones.
I know.
At the end there, pulled it out.
He was heading for...
An overall high scorer.
But he got a one from me for a great grievance murmuring as well because I just don't see him doing that.
So we got a lot of fives and a lot of ones.
You were wrong about that.
That's right.
I forgot about that.
Yeah, overall, Matt, you made the calibrations of the grommeter, right?
These percentages are now accurate.
Isn't that right?
I think they're accurate now.
Okay, so assuming that they're accurate.
Okay, we only got 64 from him.
Yeah, he got 69 for me, which is slightly higher, right?
Or if you want it in the raw score, he got 41.5 for me and got 39 for Matt.
So worth remembering that the level of difference there is two points in totality, right, between Matt and my score.
But converted into percentage.
64 for Matt and 69 for me.
So, yeah, but that's not low, Matt.
That's, you know, that is...
No, that's not low.
That's right.
Like, if that was your score on a test, like an exam for uni, that might feel low to you.
But the Garometer, it works differently.
Yes, there are a couple of people.
Can I ask a question?
It's an unrelated question, but Intel 3, if you will, Matt, Intel 3, just in Australia.
When you're marking things, do you go from like 0 to 100, including on essays?
Or is it like 0 to 75?
Why 75?
Is 75 a special number?
Yeah, yeah.
So this is a weird quirk of the British system or ones that follow along there.
In the UK, basically the highest mark you can get is like mid-70.
Yeah, it's the highest.
Like, theoretically, you can get 100.
The marking scheme goes 0 to 100.
But it is now never given.
So, like, if you get over 70, it's understood that you got a...
Like an A. Yeah.
That's so weird.
I did not know that about the...
Yeah.
With essays.
So, it's actually very confusing for students initially because that is not the system in schools.
So, they come from secondary school and then...
They get like 67 in their essay and they're like, what the fuck?
And you're like, no, actually, this is normal.
Like the highest I've ever seen is like 76 or 77. So, yeah.
That is weird.
That is weird.
Now, ours is even more confusing.
Like when we give a grade for anything, it could be out of however many points.
So it could be out of 35, could be out of 12, could be out of 36. And then...
Then it all gets, you know, essentially converted to a percentage for calculating your GPA, you know.
Okay, I get it.
It's confusing in a different way for students.
Like, I've filled with a lot of emails, like, explain to me how my grades work and I have to show them the calculation.
Well, yeah, because I feel that this is also a sort of arcade system because in the UK then to translate grades across to American scale, you know, like they have to be calculated that there actually is You know, a lower limit.
Whatever.
Anyway, it's just...
I got another question for you, Chris.
In both the UK and Japan, how do they feel about marking on the bell curve?
Is that a thing that is encouraged, discouraged, or are they silent on the matter?
It's idiosyncratic in its implementation.
It depends.
It depends on the size of the class or the university and the particular thing.
I think, in general, they would like to see a curve, right?
In general, they don't want to see...
Like a large collection of people around the higher or lower echelons by them.
But yeah, it's not enforced rigorously.
See, we had this weird schizophrenic thing going on in Australia where on one hand, for a decently large class, they do like to see kind of a bell curve, right?
Because if it's highly secured, everyone's getting A's or everyone's failing, it obviously signifies something is not quite right.
On the other hand, there is like a policy philosophy thing, which is, I think, broadly across all unis, which is we have criterion-based marking, Chris.
Criterion-based marking, right?
So we don't mark to a bell curve.
We set criteria, and if students meet the criteria for a given grade, you know, you've got your big matrices.
What's it called?
A rubric.
Big, you know, marking rubrics, all of that stuff.
And you've got to follow that.
And so the bell curve is very much a dirty word.
You do not mark students on a bell curve.
On the other hand, it should come to a bell curve, I think.
Mixed messages, mixed messages.
These are the insights that patrons get, Matt.
They learn about marking systems at different universities.
These are the kind of worldly insights that you won't get in the main feed.
This is the kind of thing the gurus want talking about.
Yeah, people won't talk about marking schemes at universities.
They simply will not talk about them.
Who's talking about that?
Who's talking about this?
No one.
Just us.
Yeah, in the podcast field.
No one.
So, yeah.
Well, now, something we do, Matt, don't forget this before you hang up your decoding robe and wizard hat there.
We have a bunch of bonus points that we like to assign.
Yes or no.
Binary.
Ones or zeros to whether they do them.
And the way that we do this is that I put them to you, and you decide, and I only overrule you if you're wrong.
So you are the master here, Matt.
I am the quiz master.
Okay.
I might overrule you if you're wrong.
It's the only thing that can happen.
Okay.
Okay.
Get ready.
It's kind of like a quick fire round, but not that quick.
So here we go.
These are features which are not big enough to graduate to...
Pure gurometer factors, but they are recurrent themes that we've noticed and that we think add to your guriosity if you're doing them.
Can I just go on my gut?
Can I just go on my gut, my intuition?
Yeah, exactly.
That's the beauty of this system.
Okay, so first of all up, we have monomania.
Monomania, like having one theory to explain everything.
I say yes.
You say yes.
Okay.
Shilling Supplements?
Is Teal Shilling Supplements?
No.
Does he engage in bruisity?
No.
I don't think so.
He just doesn't.
Is he charismatic?
No.
He's not charismatic.
Rare miss there.
Him and Curtis Arvin both not getting the charisma bonuses.
That's right.
Most of them do get the charisma bonus.
Almost everyone else has got it.
Even people we hate.
So, what about neologisms?
Does he come up with his own terms?
No, he kind of borrows all those.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.
Good.
Strategic disclaimers?
Yes, I did hear him.
I heard him doing that.
Oh, yeah, yeah, you're right.
You remember how he frames, like just before he's going to say something ridiculous about interpreting the Bible.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, you know, I wouldn't say completely take it literally.
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
He does do that.
Yeah.
Almost missed that.
See, this is why you're the responder here.
Rebranding alerts theories as his own.
Well, look, I'm going to kind of put it as yes, because he's a recycler.
He gives credit.
To his credit, he gives citations.
You know, he likes to name drop all the people that he's recycling ideas from.
But he is a big recycler.
He is a big recycler, so he gets a one.
Loquaciousness?
Hell no.
Hell no.
God damn.
He needs to see a voice coach.
I'm not very good in this department.
Our last three gurus, Sabine Curtis and Peter Thiel, have all been not scored that bonus point.
Sabine's a great talker compared to these two.
Yeah, she is.
That's just to be clear.
In comparison to them, she is good.
But compared to John Verveke, Dr. K?
No.
Few can compare.
Few of us mere mortals can compare.
All right.
And then last is never admitting error.
Well, I didn't really come across.
Didn't come up.
Didn't come up.
Sorry.
We can give him a pass if we're doctoral.
Okay.
Yeah, true.
I think he probably doesn't.
But in the content we looked at, it's not like Peter Robinson was calling him.
Like, Peter, you got something wrong here.
In fact, he apologized for even having internal doubt of idea inside of Feet-O-T.
That was more history.
Okay, Chris, Chris, Chris.
I just had a great idea.
A great idea.
An innovation for the garometer.
In garometry?
These happen from time to time.
Yeah, these ideas.
So, you know, we've got the scores and we've got percentages.
But what we don't have is like the tomato meter.
On Rotten Tomatoes where, yes, there's all of the, you know, every reviewer is giving different grades and stuff like that.
But in the end, Rotten Tomatoes gives a certified fresh or lemon type binary thing.
Are they a guru?
So my question to you is, I wonder if we could sort, we don't have to do it right now, but we could sort all of those gurus based on their percentages and see if we can identify a cut point where...
You love this.
This is not a new idea.
This is a rebranding of a previous idea that you've had where you're like, if they score high in a couple of factors, they kind of automatically become gurus, don't they?
And as you know, Matt, someone did an analysis of this.
They did a quantitative analysis of your insights and they said it doesn't make any difference.
But I do like this.
I think you're right.
We've got some gurometer tinkering to do.
We've got to go back and add moral grandstanding for all the people that we haven't covered.
And we need to update some gurus.
Like we've looked at Russell Brand and a bunch of different content since we covered him.
Many years ago, right?
So we've got to do a special episode, some tinkering, some maintenance on the grometer.
And we can do that at that time.
Just go through and be like, this is their score.
But just in our gut sense, are they a guru?
Are they yes or no?
Answer now, mate.
Yes or no.
We could do that.
We could do that.
I agree, Chris.
So we need a supplemental, a further kind of supplemental, a supplemental to the supplemental, maybe an annex.
An appendix to the Gerometer.
An appendix to the Gerometer.
Appendix episode.
I think we'll make it just one episode.
We'll focus on the moral grandstanding.
We'll get it all up.
We'll get them all like moral grandstanding.
We'll get all the bonus points.
We'll get them all in order, all updated.
Yeah, it's necessary.
It is necessary.
The science of Gerometry cannot be left to the amateurs, Matt.
We have to push the frontiers forward.
That's right.
That's what researchers do.
Well, good work, Chris.
Yes, great work.
Fantastic.
We've sorted out Peter Thiel.
We know what the deal is there.
Matt, two quotes.
Christopher Kavanagh.
Peter Thiel's a big potato head.
And then Bible.
John 316, whatever.
That shows my loquacious ability to generate a big potato head.
That's not even accurate.
If anything, he's more like a slim potato head.
So, yeah.
There we go.
Peter Robinson has badly infected my mind.
That's what I'm going to say.
I'll never get his questioning style.
I don't think I'll ever get over that.
Yeah, he's like that sovereign nations guy.
Oh, Michael Apollon.
Yeah, Michael Apollon.
Imagine the two of them.
Imagine if they got together.
Oh, God.
The hush.
I mean, they probably had a big fight over picking the classical music that would serve as the intro to the show because they have that in common too.
Or the particular biblical interpretation.
I wonder and not curious if you get two guys that are really in the...
Biblical prophecies.
Do they gel on jazz?
Or are they, you know, somebody coming in and they've got the exact same shtick there?
No, I'm that guy, right?
Like, I've got the, we need to read the Bible more.
That's my thing, right?
I'm just going to say this.
This is my final take.
Like, with the benefit of 700 years or so of hindsight, I think it's quite clear now that the Reformation was a mistake.
Translating the Bibles.
From Latin and stuff into English.
Letting everyone read them.
Letting every guy have their own particular interpretation of it.
Start up their own thing.
It was clearly a bad news.
We need to go back.
Everyone needs to come back to the fold.
We need to return.
Return to the one universal Catholic Church.
Nobody gets to look at the Bible.
You can't even look at it, right?
And it's got to be written in a language that no one understands.
And unless you're authorized.
And you have a special dispensation from the Pope.
You can't even read it.
And furthermore, we need to bring back the Inquisition.
Because the Inquisition can then go out and hunt down people like Peter Thiel and burn them.
Oh, heretics.
Yeah, okay.
That's a strong tick there.
That's unexpected there.
Why not?
I'll sign off on it.
Yeah, this is in the Patreon.
It's okay.
We can say these things.
But what the hell?
Now, that was so out of left field that it's actually knocked me off.
I've literally blown your mind.
That's right.
You have.
I wasn't expecting the endorsement of the Inquisition to come in there at the end.
So I guess that's just the frame.
I've been radicalized by Fallon and Teal.
I mean, you can't think about those people with that.
Wanting to bring back a little bit of an inquisition.
That's it.
That's it.
Well, I remember what my hot take was now.
And I'm not going to go into detail.
I'm just going to leave it here as the final word.
I think, ultimately, we have to blame the philosophers for this.
