Supplementary Material 38: Toxic Mould Symbiosis, Mild Phrenology, and the Best People in the World
We end the futile struggle, embrace the toxins, and become one with our mould brethren.The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 38 minutes).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusSupplementary Material 3800:00 Intro02:54 Boomer Matt reacts to Twitter videos07:31 Shellenberger and Tucker discuss the 9/11 Files12:42 Eric's Google Ngram Investigations17:08 Vindication on the Elephant Graveyard22:00 Eric's ARC lecture goes viral25:24 Andrew Huberman is NOT a phrenologist...29:06 Eric Weinstein vs. Piers Morgan33:44 Everyone knows Eric is a serious thinker46:09 Peterson is taken out of the Gurusphere by Demons and Toxic Mould52:09 Gurus and Bespoke Alternative Health57:00 Social Contagion Hypocrisy01:02:55 Toxic Mould Symbiosis?01:04:46 Pewdiepie, Diogenes, and the Seeker Mindset01:16:14 The Wisdom of the Ancients01:21:01 The Meaning Crisis and Christian Pivots01:22:29 Konstantin Kisin's surprising Christian pivot01:25:17 The best person Konstantin ever met (not Francis)01:30:22 The Fifth Column Agrees with Megyn Kelly 88% of the time01:33:07 Megyn Kelly explains how the Democrats crossed the line and must pay01:41:35 Intellectual Clerics for MAGA01:43:16 Slightly Adversarial libertarians for hire01:47:00 Drew Pavlou and Fluid Populism01:50:17 Two Varieties of Online Derangement: Noah Smith's Hot Takes01:53:57 Need for Attention = Desire for Virality01:57:23 Status Seeking Networkers vs Paul Bloom02:01:27 Reflecting on the Al Murray Interview02:02:22 The struggle of podcasters02:04:52 Paul Bloom: The best person in the world?02:06:00 Mike Israetel's Thesis Controversy02:10:30 What does a PhD mean?02:16:55 David Deutsch visits Curt Jaimungal02:22:32 The Dangers of Doubling Down: Pirate Software02:23:32 Hasan Piker and Shock Collar-gate02:27:15 Matt's Take on Shock Collars02:33:51 Dystopia Update: Putin wants Trump to win the Nobel Prize02:37:11 OutroSourcesShellenberger and Tucker discuss the CIA’s role in 9/11Grok pressing Eric to get specificThe Elephant GraveyardViral post about Eric’s ARC speech on scienceHuberman’s phrenology endorsementJordan Peterson’s Health Update from MikhailaChris Williamson: It’s time to talk about my health.Chang, C., & Gershwin, M. E. (2019). The myth of mycotoxins and mold injury. Clinical Reviews in Allergy & Immunology, 57(3), 449–455.Borchers, A. T., Chang, C., & Eric Gershwin, M. (2017). Mold and human health: A reality check. Clinical Reviews in Allergy & Immunology, 52(3), 305–322.<a...
Hello and welcome to Coding the Gurus Supplementary.
This is a side production of the larger decoding the gurus podcast ecosystem with the venerable psychologist Matthew Bryan over there and his plucky young upstart companion, Christopher Kavanamie.
I'm trying to develop you into a fully-fledged academic podcaster and man.
Well, likewise, Matt, you're my project, and one of the things that I like to do is you know help you with your audio quality.
So I'll just mention that this early stage.
Be careful of getting too close to your microphone.
That's a sensitive piece of equipment.
There, okay.
My brand new microphone that I had express shipped because I left the exact same copy of the other budget microphone that is currently at my brother's house.
But it's good, I'm gonna have microphones in every place that I visit.
Yeah, we're moving, we're moving up.
You've got two microphones now.
Yeah, quality isn't increasing, but the quantity, yeah, the quality is gone up.
The amount of microphones you're accumulating is impressive, but well, not really.
After this many years of podcasting, only having two microphones feels like you're not really trying hard enough.
Like, shouldn't you have like different microphones for different occasions?
Like this is my SMR mic, this is my bass boosted voice.
B it's beautiful, base boosted voice.
This is my boss boosted voice.
Bass is a bass.
Which freaking one is it?
I think it's bass.
I think it's bass.
Base can you feel the base?
Yeah, um like the bass drop.
Yeah, no, I like it, I like it.
Switch your mics according to mood.
It makes sense.
So, Chris, God, I think we've got the mother of all supplementary materials this week.
Quite a lot, that's true.
We've got a lot of things on the agenda, a lot of things have happened, and we we should probably get to it.
But you know, Matt.
We don't have to hurry.
I we don't have to hurry.
I I just got I gotta tell you, Chris.
I mean, I I don't know if other people in the audience are in the same position, and maybe I'm showing my age.
But you know, I'd live a reasonably wholesome life.
Um reasonably not entirely, but you know, on a day like today, you know, I'm I'm helping students, I'm doing research, I'm plottering about in the garden, I'm cooking.
And then you look at social media and stuff, and the thing that I looked at today, I opened up X, which nobody should do under any circumstances.
And it's a clip, and I've seen clips like this many, many times, and I know you know there's a lot of whys and what have you.
But the clip is pretty typical showing a bunch of masked men uh in full-up military gear with big guns strapped to their back, basically accosting and apprehending a little 10-year-old, looks maybe Mexican, Hispanic, shall we say, girl, walking home from school with a little school bag there, detaining her, taking her away.
There's no parents or anything around, and putting her into an unmarked van.
With the blacked out windows and stuff like that.
And uh so that's bad.
That's a bad thing that makes that it doesn't look good, doesn't feel good, and isn't good, I think, on many levels, whatever your political opinions are about immigration and all of that stuff.
And then this mistake.
Hold on.
Before you move on there, I just want to check something.
Now, given what I know about social media, you have checked the veracity of this.
No, I didn't.
I'm a boomer, Chris.
I I didn't even want to look at it, let alone check it out.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, I so I haven't seen this.
So just I'm just flagging up.
Like that the first thing before getting outraged is usually to check that it is it is uh it's like what it is.
Outrages directionally correct, I think.
But okay, regardless of this particular video.
You couldn't even believe it.
I mean, it's it's there are dozens of these, right?
There are dozens of these sorts of clips.
Well, that makes it even more.
That's I mean, the heuristic shares of line for the listeners here are incredible.
All right, yes.
I'm sorry.
I'm getting all right, I'm getting radicalized by liberal rage bait.
Sure.
Okay, let's take that as a given.
Fine.
Okay, okay.
But then, like, regardless of that, like what's really depressing is just looking at the comments, you know.
And I think the the way in which these these people who condone this and excuse it and go, This is great, you know, it serves a right, you shouldn't be here in the first place, which is not our job to be educating people from other countries and all this stuff.
I mean, I'm not saying they're completely wrong about their various political opinions, whatever, but just the way in which footage like that can be excused and dismissed and going because it's just not it's not good on any level, regardless of the context.
A bunch of heavily armed men wearing ski masks and military combat fatigues, dragging a little girl off the street and putting her into a van.
Come on, that's not good.
That how can that be good?
And anyway, I just I mean that's what depressed me.
Not so much the video or its veracity or that, but just the the comments, which were a bunch of you know, red-pilled mega chuts, basically saying this is fine, good, more of it, cry more liberals, that kind of thing.
Anyway.
Yes, well, I I have experienced the same thing uh multiple times, especially it's especially with Twitter.
You know, Twitter is the worst of the social media and networks there, and like you know, that's not a like a novel observation, right?
Everybody knows that, and uh a lot of the thing on Twitter is one being grandfathered in there and only having the capacity to deal with one social network, and two is like the one thing I will say for Twitter is if you want to see the most stupid things, it's it's a it's a gold mine, like it's it it delivers endlessly just stupid tick after stupid tick.
And uh I went on it a while back, and I was just like I was you know, if you stay in your little bubble and you're dealing with the counts you interact with or you're tweeting, it can be fine, it's all okay, but when you just start going around by what's trending, you come across like the ins the insanity that is there, and I have an example.
This is one of the first things I bumped into.
Let's see if you can identify the two guruish figures involved here, Matt.
So here you go.
A nice little clip to get you warmed up.
By the way, congratulations on your brilliant documentary.
I saw the first part of it last night.
So now it appears, if I'm understanding correctly, that the CA was probably behind uh the 9-11 attacks.
It was a botched uh CIA operation.
It sounds like I haven't finished your series.
But here you have this.
So I mean, you kind of go, so here you have an organization that's responsible for just the worst like regime change coups, followed by dictators who tortured people.
CIA that you know infiltrated American student groups that used labor unions to you know engage in regime change.
Um, you know, that spawn off people that were involved in the censorship industrial complex and warfare may have been sounds like what you're saying, you know, that uh was behind or at least uh didn't stop or contributed to the 9-11 attacks, and then they did the torture after 9-11, which not only doesn't work, uh like creates bad information and is a stain on the moral character of the United States.
Uh at certain point, you're like, what is this dog of an organization doing being just unreformed and trampling on all of our basic you know freedoms?
Who was that, Matt?
You recognize those kick characters?
No, I was gonna ask you that.
Who is who is that?
Let's start there.
Oh well, I guess you didn't really hear the other person respond, right?
So one was Tucker Carlson, and the the guy talking about you know his insightful new documentary which blows the lid off 9/11, which apparently was the CIA, Matt, all along.
That was uh investigative reporter, uh star of the free press, Michael Schellenberger there.
Oh that guy, yeah.
Yeah, it seems like I mean, there was I mean, he said some true things, I think, about the CIA.
Um, which ones in particular related to 9/11?
Not the 9-11 bits, I don't think.
I mean, but he hedged his bits there, didn't he?
I mean, it was um well, they you know, they they organized it, it was a botched, you know, a botched operation, or they didn't stop it, or they I don't know.
He he sort of covered all bases there.
Um yeah, stop or contributed and uh and so on, but like I mean, the implication is very 9-11 truth for stuff.
That's where that's where that is going.
So was this in collaboration with the Jews, or was this separate these were separate operations?
Well, we know from Anarchis Farian that the Jews were you know, they were all celebrating and they knew about it in advance and and stuff.
So you've got them would have been tipped off by the CIA, obviously.
This is it, yeah.
That's probably the connection.
So yeah, that was that was like one thing, right?
It's it's like one of those like little memes where you have the guy, you know, come out in the estation or whatever and look around, there's maniacs, like all these clips of maniacs, right?
On the other hand, map there was Eric having a a discussion with Grok, another one, right?
Where they were uh he was discussing SpeS X and tagging in Grok about his intuitions or whatever, and just the funny thing about it was that Eric was lamenting, you know, physics is doing terrible, we need to develop things, like let's get rid of this stagnation.
And Grok was like, you know, this is a great idea, right?
Like give us a couple of names, you know, who are you who who are you thinking?
And Eric's like, oh, you know, well, I could name a ton of people, but let me throw a couple, like well, who would you generate, Grok?
You know, they're banging back and forth.
Grock gave a list.
Uh on the list was Sean Carroll, and Eric responded saying, Well, some of those would be great appointments, but some would be terrible.
Well, that's let's not get into the details, right?
And uh they they go back and forth, and then the beautiful thing about it is um that Eric starts trying to, you know, bully Groc into saying that that his approach is right and that he's doing things correct and all this kind of stuff, but and that he's been unfairly accused of not having a Lagrangian and you know, all those kind of things, and then Gronk, the helpful AI that it is is like, well, look, Eric, you know, you're right.
Look, objectively, I can see all these things, but you know, why don't we just resolve this now?
I can put things into equations.
Why don't you just give me, give me the values for this, I'll put it in, and we can solve this later.
And then Eric Rick hears to be some like, no, no, no, no.
We don't need to get it, but there's no time for that today, Groc.
Like, thanks for your help.
I'll be hoping.
So even Brock is like bullying Eric, you know, to get the specifics.
Oh, poor Eric.
Even the AIs are asking for the Lagrangian now.
Um, yes.
I mean, Eric also on Twitter was noting, Matt, that he did a uh Google Books engram viewer, and he looked for the word peer review or the free is peer review.
Um, when did it start appearing in books?
You know, book Google and grams give you these little graphs about the frequency of terms, so you can see, oh, look, this word is being used more in the books uploaded to the Google Books database.
And he said, when I type this in, you don't see peer review appearing in any of the records, Matt, until 1965.
And you know, Eric's point is we were lied, we were lying to you about peer review.
This is not a fundamental um part of science, it's it's just a recent invention.
And and on the one hand, just to mention, by the way, Matt, he is right, you know, like the modern peer review system, it's built on on older systems and whatnot, but it hasn't been around since like the Greek and Roman times, right?
That is true.
It is uh the modern journal system is a modern thing, but he's wrong in in the piece of evidence that he supplies from Google Engram and what he takes from that.
So do you see any issues with the logic there, Matt, with using ngrams to you know determine uh when something appears and and so on or whatever, or is that fine?
Is Eric being reasonable?
Okay, so these this Ngram thing is basically some computer basically searching through all of these textual sources and just counting how many times words appear in its database according to year of publication, right?
Correct, yes, right, right.
So if you make a chart of that going back into time, you're gonna see you know, some sort of curve, some sort of trend.
Exactly.
And it's gonna have something to do with popularity, but it's also gonna have to do with a lot of stuff, like how many documents are accessible by the AOI in a given year.
So one of the first things I would do is if I saw a chart, a trend, which which might be meaningful to me, is maybe compare it to uh a base case, some other innocuous word.
Oh my god.
Oh my god, Matt, you would do a a test to check that you haven't arrived at a false positive.
Is that what you're saying?
You would you would check for disconfirming evidence with that?
Yeah, now who would do that?
This is this is something, by the way, that I will say the internet is very bad at.
It just disconfirming evidence checks, it does not like to do this.
And uh, I did it for Eric Matt.
So I took three words, which I know have a significant history beyond the 1960s.
So one was Velociraptor, they've been around quite a while, and fossils of them have been around as well.
Another was Moy Thai, the ancient art of Siam, the martial art of Siam, the the science of Viet Limbs.
Again, not something that developed in the 1960s, and the last was Bayesian, Bayesian, right?
Now, Thomas Thomas Bayes, a 18th-century uh English statistician, philosopher, minister, right?
So again, Bayesianism, it's been around for uh a couple of hundred years.
Would you believe it, Matt, that all of those engrams give the impression that nobody was talking, or like maybe one or two people, but basically nobody they all start after the 1960s to go up?
So following Eric's logic, we were lying to about Muay Thai, Velociraptors, and Bayesianism.
Yeah, yeah.
I didn't even put Bayesianism just to be clear, I put Bayesian.
Sure, sure, sure.
There you go.
Yeah, brain the size of the planet, uh, Eric.
Yeah, he's he's developed his own physics, he can see clearly through everything, but yeah, incapable of the most basic kinds of checks to, as you said, disconfirm, check, check that your little idea there might possibly not be the support for your claim that you think it is.
So, yeah, very much on par for Eric.
Now, yes, and I do have uh another run in Eric Cad with somebody questioning his logic in a second map.
But can I just interrupt?
Because I realize there's an important announcement.
We wouldn't want the free listeners to miss this.
You remember the elephant graveyard video?
Do you recall that?
Yes, yes, I remember.
Yep.
Yes, and we made a little uh response to it.
You know, we pointed out that we generally find it all you know enjoyable.
It was a nice satirical video and pointing out real issues, which are working, but but one issue was that it it at times seemed to be your like towards the conspiratorial, but not in a parodic way, in a way that like a lot of people seem to be taking very seriously, right?
And we pointed out that uh there was an issue in that in terms of like the audience reaction and whether the creator wanted to endorse conspiracies, particularly around like teal and tech billionaires.
And people dunked on us, Chris.
People said we just didn't get it, you know, there's something wrong with this.
Satire, Matt.
Did you not understand?
No, the fact that we said that we know it's site tower, that we enjoyed the satire, that we don't have any issue with the satire.
That's not the point that we're making.
That didn't seem to stop people.
And and as we pointed out in the response, there were people saying, you fools, it's obviously all satirical.
It doesn't mean anything.
And there were a almost equal amount of people saying you you didn't get that he was dropping truth bomb after truth bomb.
So that this highlighted a point.
But you could have, you know, continued to be like, yeah, well, that's your opinion.
You know, people with the requisite intellect understood.
Now you could have took that opinion, Matt, until the elephant graveyard themselves posted on YouTube, and they posted two things.
They posted one, like kind of warning people to stop harassing a comedian that they highlighted in the video, right?
So I'll just read it, it's not that long.
It's come to our attention that people are taking the Duncan Trussell stuff way too far and they're harassing and threatening the guy.
Can't believe we even have to say this, but we are completely against this unhinged behavior.
The point of the segment was to highlight how to talk about the infiltration of independent media he'd been having for years with Rogan, suddenly disappeared once his protections essentially came true.
How relationships among media figures affect what gets said and what gets avoided.
Never once implied he's working for Peter Thiel or on his payroll.
And to draw that conclusion is really, really dumb.
It's a comedy video for fuck's sake.
Harassing the guy with Freds is beyond stupid and completely uncalled for.
And if you're into that, then please unsub because we ain't about that here.
Also, Sue Eyes is now a retired bet.
It sucks now.
Okay.
So does that not imply that the elephant graveyard creator also noticed the issue, right?
With people overreacting and overinterpreting the taking it a little bit too seriously, taking it at first value, i.e., exactly what we were warning people about.
Yes, Chris.
I can see that.
It does.
And that they are also a very reasonable person who, when they notice that, made a note to their audience to say, hey, cut it out.
We don't endorse this.
And they even said this bet that people are enjoying about you know, kind of looking dead behind the eyes.
We're not doing that anymore because people are taking it too far, right?
To me, that's very responsible.
Um, and I said as much on on Twitter.
But but the important thing, Matt, is we are vindicated.
Yes, that's the important thing.
But but also we're not just vindicated there, Matt.
We're not just indicated there, because I spoke to the elephant grearguard.
I spoke via email, and they confirmed that they are longtime listeners to DTG.
And we shared, you know, mutual appreciation for our our variable products and whatnot, and and talked about the thing.
And we're in alignment.
We agree about these kinds of things.
So there was no there was no issue between us at the elephant graveyard, right?
It was the stupid audience.
That's right.
Yeah, so those unwatched masses.
Yeah, don't get it crooked.
The elephant graveyard guy uh or guys or girls or whatever, the hidden collective there, great bunch of guys, great taste in podcasts.
That's what I'm saying.
Well, yeah, well, that's nice.
Well, I'm glad you corresponded with them because I um, yeah, as I said, I did enjoy that.
Um, but yes, I think I think still the caution is is warranted about uh taking taking the satire a little bit too seriously.
Um Chris, but we you introduced Eric and then you moved on from Eric so quickly, but I've got it's so much more.
You've got no Eric thing.
There is so much more, I know.
This is always more.
No, I he gave a lecture, I think.
Is it at the ARC?
Yes, I did see this.
Yes, yeah, and and and the lecture is worth checking out, but um, another brain dead idiot.
Um helpfully uh get gives a summary here, which I'm going to not read in its entirety, but it's it's a helpful cliff notes.
Yeah, so in sum, he he eric presents this stunning and urgent thesis that you know we know the story.
Uh fundamental progress in theoretical physics has been mysteriously halted since the 1970s.
So everything is stagnating.
It's it's very chilling.
There was a meeting where Mark Andresson was told by the Biden White House that they had deliberately stagnated fields of theoretical physics, not an accident, it's policy.
So there you go.
The White House told Mark Andreason that they have been deliberately stopping progress in fields of theoretical physics.
Um huge if true.
Yeah, no.
I did see that this particular video of Eric uh, you know, kind of prancing around the stage and and pontificating as he's want to do.
It did it did have the uh unintended consequence that that like kind of video highlight being shared with the summary, uh that a whole bunch of scientists, the the last remaining vanguard on on Twitter, essentially I just saw endless scientists responding to it, being like, this is so stupid, right?
And that was uh yeah, I was glad to see that occasionally Eric can still you know inspire scientists to just be like he knows nothing about what he's talking about, and he this seemed to break through.
I saw lots of people commenting on it.
Well, that's good because he uses as a stupid person's idea of a smart person.
That's his job, that's his role.
There's no point dunking on him because those people will forever fall for his his nonsense, but you know, you should dug on him anyway.
And uh, but but there was this one bit.
Look, there's so much here, it's all very profound, it's all very deep, um, you know, terrible things, conspiracies going on.
We can we can surpass the speed of light and uh reach for the stars if only these mysterious forces, Goliath wasn't standing in our way.
But the but the bit that I liked is this.
While some fear the rise of China and India, Weinstein argues the true intellectual threat lies with the world's greatest mathematicians in France very good.
I wasn't I like most of it, I was all familiar narrative to me.
But the French connection, Chris, what's going on there?
Well, I didn't know.
Yeah, I thought Ed Witton would have came in for some bashing.
I'm sure he did.
He did, he did.
Edward did, yeah.
Yeah, well, Eric, you know, Matt, he's he's nothing if not surprising in the the curveballs that he can throw, right?
And and I do have a little bit more Eric Cotton to to go through this one is sort of enjoyable for an unusual reason, but uh before we get to that, just a little just a little break, just a little, you know, side uh quest everyone to mention, yeah, side quest, that's the word.
Andrew Hooperman, Matt, and other, you know, Titan of the Guru Sphere, self-optimizer man, extraordinaire.
So he he tweeted out something quite incredible.
You know, we called him out for his playing FTSE with grinding for his tendency to promote low quality studies and to suggest the placebo effect could be used instead of vaccines, various other things that he's that he's done, or country completely contradicted his stance on like therapy when he gets sponsored by predictions.
You know, or just his incredible grifting.
Um yeah, he I mean there's somebody we could we could go on and uh let's not reprise it all now.
That's but yes, yeah.
But I mean, let's just, you know, maybe one more, just that he he castrated his dog, but then he started injecting his dog with testosterone, and his dog looked at him as if to say, Thank you, Andrew, Andrew.
That was that was a rather of his classic tweets.
But this one, this one's up there.
So he he wrote this is uh like down in uh follow-up to a tweet, and he said, dog breeds with different shaped heads are predictive of their demeanor and intelligence.
And while I don't exclamation mark, believe in phrenology.
When someone says that, by the way, Matt, you know, when they say this this thing, I know I don't do this, so let's let's see what he does believe in.
I now do pay some attention to how the shapes Of people's heads relates to their intellect and steadiness or lack thereof.
And mind you, I did not describe what I think is the direction of the effect.
So don't leap to assumptions.
What does that even mean?
Sorry, he's he's not a phrenologist, but he does look at the shape of people's heads.
And judge just their intellectual.
But don't pre-judge about it, because he didn't say the exact shape that correlates to like assessment.
That's right.
So it could be flatheads or pointy heads that you know, you don't know what he thinks.
It could be either all is is good.
We don't know.
And that's not phrenology, Matt, because he was clear it's not phrenology, right?
Like almost by definition, judging people's intellect by the shape of their skulls is phrenology.
Right.
But but for Hooperman, no, no, it's enough.
And it's a beautiful strategic disclaimer.
It's a beautiful illustration of that.
Yeah, that is that is up there with yeah, I'm not a racist, but they're coming up with something incredibly racist.
Idiots will say I'm a phrenologist just because I'm judging people.
Those fools.
How dare you?
How very dare you.
Um I know.
Well, you know, I'm cut from a different cloth, Chris.
I judge people by the shape of their tweets.
And is an idiot.
I mean, he's not a phrenologist, he's not, he's not anything.
He just he just says dumb shit.
I mean, the annoying thing about that is it just doesn't make sense on any level, just because you don't, you're not telling people like what shape of scholars is associated with the good and the bad thing, that doesn't make it not phrenology.
Like that doesn't like uh uh you're you're quite right, Matt.
It doesn't make it phrenology.
Now I um I said we'll get back there to Eric, and I I do think we should because Eric appeared um with Piers Morgan.
Um and it was ostensibly related to Charlie Kirk and Free Speech, but that's not what it entirely ended up being about.
But that was you know the thing now.
Whenever I saw Eric is on Piers Morgan again, and he's been given another platform to waffle.
I was like, this is gonna be annoying, right?
Especially when I saw that it's not a panel, so there's nobody to push back on.
Eric, right?
And he he helpfully explains that this is like one of his criteria now for going on Piers, that he he will not go when there's other people there to argue with him.
I think people have no idea what Pandora's box they've opened.
And and Piers, if I can just bring it back to this program, as you know, I very much enjoy doing this program, but principally I I insist that it's you and me in one-on-one.
And why is that?
It's because this program also is normalizing the most insane voices.
If you think about it, you're very capable of having a terrific one-on-one discussion, but you're also at the same time playing with people who are completely unhinged in a sort of Jerry Springerization of uh the discussion of our problems.
Um what happens though during the conversation, Matt is they're talking about Charlie Kirk in the reaction, and it's all what you know, predictable Eric stuff, but then Eric chastises Piers, and that leads to a very extended segment.
In fact, the majority of the episode is then about this topic.
And here's Eric pivoting to it, okay.
Some of those people that you have on are revolutionaries, they're not actually normal guests.
Who are you who are you talking about?
Revolutionary emphasis.
Well, who are you talking about?
I'm not gonna get into it.
You're gonna give an example of what you're you're gonna give an example, surely.
I have no problem giving an example.
I'm trying to tell you about what my issue is is that they come to my house, they publish my address.
What you're talking about is inviting people who have absolutely no regard for life, for family, for even normal politics.
And what I'm trying to what I'm trying to say is we don't understand who we've opened the door to.
I love the way uh Eric deflects because it's so clumsy, yeah.
But it seems to work.
Um okay.
Sorry, but well, but you know, uh I know Piers does not let it go.
But uh okay, so Piers has quite reasonably said, okay, who shouldn't I be um interviewing?
Which which guess shouldn't come on?
Yeah, and I will also say that Eric's right, like everything that he said there about Piers Morgan is correct, right?
Like Piers Morgan is essentially the modern uh social media incarnation of Jerry Springer, right?
He gets all unhinged people together and gets them the argue, but he can do interviews, notably Eric.
People like Eric, but anyway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, you know, the messenger here is flawed, but his point is actually I agree with Eric.
He's making a valid point about like what Pierce's role is in the modern ecosystem.
But I think isn't he thinking of people like Sean Carroll?
Like I think this is correct, because like as you go on, it's worth asking people who is Eric meaning because you might think that he's talking about you know, like extremists or so on there, but you you heard him reference like people who publish his address or something, right?
Like he just touched it up, but people that come to his people that come to his house.
Has there been any Morgan guests that have gone to Eric's house?
I wonder.
I know.
Well, there probably are, but they're mostly like invited by Eric.
But in any case, so it goes on, right?
And you heard uh Piers be like, Well, who, Eric, who do you mean now?
It's like yeah, I can name them, and then he doesn't name anyone, but then coming back to what you said about this show and who we platform and stuff, you know.
I have people who react to me platforming you, right?
Who say you're a dangerous extremist and so on.
You you've heard that yourself many times, I'm sure.
I don't view you as either.
I haven't I haven't heard that I'm a dim or that I'm a dangerous extreme.
I I no, I I don't I don't put think that about you for a moment, but I'm curious who you think we've platformed who would fit fit that category that you're discussing and whether you think you just repeated something, which I don't well I'm just talking about random people I'm not random people on social media.
I'm not talking about may a mainstream voice, I'm talking about random people commenting when we do stuff.
There's always a few that pop up who think you're a lunatic, right?
I as there are with everyone I talk to.
I can interview Mother Teresa.
There'd be people calling her a Pierce Lunatic.
Piers, for God's sake, for God's sake, man.
I'm a Harvard PhD with an MIT postdoc.
I've been uh funded by Soros and Teal.
Nobody really thinks that I'm stupid.
Nobody thinks that I'm a dangerous lunatic, nobody really thinks that I'm far left or far right.
There's a bunch of morons on the internet, and if you want to decide that they have a voice, then I'm sure that some of them think I'm a robot, some of them think I'm a hologram, and some of them think that I'm a space alien.
Uh if you decide that you're gonna open the discussion to those voices, I'll go get a sandwich.
Uh you're not a dangerous.
A lot of classic Eric isms there.
Yeah, yeah.
Um so does he does he manage to get uh any names out of Eric?
Well, he didn't err, right?
He he got Eric, you know, recounting the TV.
And did you notice by the way there, Matt, that Eric said funded by Soros and Thiel.
Like I know Eric was employed for like a decade or or more by Peter Thiel, right?
So yes, directly funded by Thiel, quite quite attuned to his you know, ideological mission and whatnot.
Soros, that's not somebody I've really paired with Eric.
I suspect that he's making reference to like one of his postdocs, the faculty or whatever, you know, had a grant that was somehow connected.
But like he implies there, I'm in the middle, employed by all the people, all the people recognize me as a serious thinker, and you're like, no, the majority of people don't recognize you as a serious thinker.
And so insofar as they do, they are very much aligned towards one side of the spectrum and not the other.
Yeah, I know.
I'm familiar.
I guess I'm just too familiar with it, like the way he trots out the the PhD and the postdoc and the the thing, like names and and the the teal name now the Soros name.
It's it's his go-to for establishing that he's uh a serious person, a very serious person.
But it just it just hides the fact that he has done so little, like millions of people have PhDs.
Like I know so many people have done postdocs.
You know, I've done post talks, but like it's not the first anyway, whatever.
I know, I know that.
But but also you can you can see Matt as well that bet at the end when you know, after he's like, for God's sake, Matt, I you know, everybody understands I'm a serious thinker, right?
Well, even if they hit me, right?
And he kind of says, you know, well, look, if you're talking about idiots online, you know, I'm just gonna go, right?
Like, I don't need to hear from you know, people that say I'm a robot or people that say I'm a hologram.
And I'm like, that's not the critique, right?
The critique, Eric of the people that you're talking about, the online people, it's not that you're a robot or you're an AI, it's that you're a blue v8 narcissist who over exaggerates.
So, like the people who regard Eric as like secretly behind the great reset or whatever, that's the my guy who wring.
Yeah, but but the other thing too, Chris, is he's deliberately misunderstanding Piers' point there.
And Piers' point is a real basic one, which is the kind of, you know, it's good to have discussions with people, people are gonna object to to anyone that I have on and say that they're an extremist, including including you.
So, yeah, that's the point that he's not.
I just like like, yeah, on what criteria should I be excluding and who?
That's that's the question.
The only bet for me was would was he deliberately like I know he's avoiding answering that every time it's raised and stuff, but like it's also Eric Skin is so thin that that could have triggered him, yeah.
You know, that Piers mentioned criticism.
So it's uh it's like it couldinger's insult and sensitivity with Eric, right?
Like it could be a dodge, could be that he got distracted by his ego or whatever the case might be.
Um but I've got another clip, Matt.
Another clip.
So Piers is gonna try again.
Pray, continue.
Yeah, I think I'm missing my point.
I've got no problem with you saying what you said about some of the people we platform.
I'm just curious who these people are that you think I shouldn't be platforming.
Because without saying who they are, it's very hard for me to assess it.
Well, but Piers, why would I want to repeat anyone's name who has this characteristic and profile?
In other words, what I'm telling you is we've got a country that is wall-to-wall stocked with high-powered rifles that allow very far shots to be made relatively easily.
And you're talking about the fact that woke is over.
No, no, there are going to be revolutionaries at various levels throughout your life.
You'll never get rid of them, they are never going away.
And what we're talking about is we're talking about not inviting them into our lives.
Every time you ask for what are the names, what are the specifics?
Get into it.
I will tell you why invite that person to a bigger audience.
Why invite that person to paint more targets with words like reactionary Nazi Zionist?
All of these things, alt-right, far right, that stuff is going to get more and more people killed.
So I would prefer that we talk about this in general, which is anybody with wildly and radically shifted empathy.
You'll see somebody smiling when they're trying to destroy another person's character.
Wow, yeah.
Uh, so he's looking to distract Piers with uh some moral outrage, you know.
He's he's referencing the Charlie Kirk thing and the general right-wing reaction to it, which is the narrative there, of course, is that there's just just all of these left-wing people that are encouraging assassinations of good people like Charlie Kirk.
And if if Eric speaks out and they and mentions any names, then they're gonna come after him and shoot him.
Is that right?
Yes, that is the logic.
That is the logic.
Which is, I mean, he's on Pierce Morgan, right?
Like, surely an unhinged person like that, and he worked for Peter Thiel and stuff, they would already, you know, like he's already in the crosshairs.
So, yeah, so which which person on Piers Morgan could fit that description?
Who, like, because I'm not familiar with Piers Morgan's guests.
Who is he?
Is he even thinking of anyone?
Like, no, so I think Matt, that the honest answer is he means Professor Div.
Like he's talking about Professor Div and Dan Gilbert, bad stats and stuff.
Because like with Eric, you're sometimes tempted to think, oh, you know, he's thinking about the big picture or not.
But like, in reality, it's almost always about him, right?
So it's Sean Carroll and Professor D. That's I mean, he doesn't like the anti-Israeli people as well, right?
Like, but yeah, that's not his main concern.
No, his main concern is he shouldn't be talking to people like that who might say bad things about me personally.
With a smile.
With a smile on their face, right?
Like because like he's linking it in, but it's the same way whenever before he used to on Twitter talk about like people targeting his family, and he would kind of lump all his critics in as if they were all targeting his family, right?
And uh they they aren't all doing that, right?
So that's the thing.
I'm pretty sure he's talking about the fact that Piers Morgan keeps platforming Professor Dio, who's now like a recurrent guest.
That must that's gotta be it.
That's gotta be it.
That is that is so funny.
And but of course he can't say the name.
No, because if he does, then it becomes obvious that it's just a personal grievance that he's got against someone who sent me things about him.
And like, don't talk to this person.
Um Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's so you know, Matt, there's there's that.
Okay, now there's another one.
So this is this is at the end of the conversation.
Okay, I hear you, but here's how I'm gonna end this because we we run out of time.
I'm gonna get my team to send you a list of every guest we've had on this year, and I want you to tell them before we speak again, who I shouldn't have platformed.
Deal.
Well, sorry, and then then what you talk about this or I'm the gate keeper.
Then we have a really gentle.
I'm not your gate.
No, but you are suggesting you're suggesting I need one, and you're suggesting a criteria, which is based around values and empathy and so on.
I'm saying that is let me explain.
I'm saying that's a suppression of free speech.
And because actually somebody has to determine what those values are and what the level of empathy is.
And so I think it'd be really interesting for me, rather than talking like in generalized terms, who are we talking about that you think I've platformed.
Which is wrong, and we can have a debate.
Look, I I no, what I'm keep trying to tell you is I don't want these people following us after your show into our lives, calling our friends, our loved ones, publishing our at yes, what I'm trying to say is some of the people you've had on are part of that complex and trying to draw me into a specific conversation with people who are very interested in acting as the shooter did at Charlie Kirk's,
as the shooter did at Butler, Pennsylvania.
What you're doing is you're trying to say, come on, man, let's have some free speech.
Let's have some fun.
Let's be open and free-spirited and talk about people with whom we disagree.
Surely there is no gatekeeper.
What I'm trying to say is this show isn't as important enough to me that I want to endanger my family and myself playing these games.
We know what morality is.
We know that this is far outside it.
And if you want to play with those people because you think that those are interesting ideas, that's up to you.
I'm not gonna interfere with your free speech.
I'm not your gatekeeper.
And as always, I love talking to you.
Thanks very much for having me on, Piers.
I love talking to you, and I simply have one word I will repeat, which I would love to have answered next time, which is who are you talking about?
Anyway, Eric, we're gonna leave it there.
It's so funny.
I I mean you just have to love it.
This is up there with the water wiggle thing with Joe Rogan, where Joe Rogan, you know, Joe Rogan sometimes has done the same thing to Eric, which is I think people just get frustrated with the obscure dark hints and the yeah the little jabs and the posturing.
Like it like these people, Piers Morgan and Joe Rogan, not the brightest bulbs in the room.
But but you know, occasionally it seeps in that they're getting played, and they kind of demand you know, some clarity.
And uh just to sit here Eric Scrum like that.
Yeah, it just it's so anyway.
And there's very there's various parts where like um Piers points out like what you're doing, Eric, is like you're posing as a free speech uh warrior, but you're asking actually here, no, you're telling me you want me not to talk to people that you don't like.
And like, you know, Piers in this kind of you know British outreach mode.
It's as if you're trying to say gatekeeping good or bad.
It's like saying water good or bad.
If you if you if you're thirsty, water's great.
If you're hit with an avalanche, you're gonna die from it or a title wave.
You can't say that gatekeeping is good or bad.
The question is the quality of the gates kept.
No, but my problem is you it seems to me that you, Eric Weinstein, wanted to be the gatekeeper.
You want to determine whether people's empathy levels reach your body.
I have no idea.
I'm saying that to me actually is a pretty dangerous road to go down, isn't it?
But he's right there, right?
You know, like I said, Eric is right that the peers is like a kind of cancerous latch on the modern discourse.
But um Yeah, Piers is right that Eric wants us to tell him not to speak to people.
It is it is reasonable to say like who.
Like the answer is Professor Dio.
Yeah, it's just Professor David, and that's why Eric can't say it.
Because I know.
Uh one thing that you haven't heard in the Discord sphere recently, a voice that's been silent.
Didn't even comment on Charlie Kirk.
Jordan Peterson.
He's he's out of the discourse.
Yep, it's happened.
This happens from time to time.
It does happen from time to time.
And if you remember, McKilla declared that he was gonna be taking a break.
He was having some health issues and whatnot, but they solved what the cause was.
Like it was all wrong before.
Everything, whatever they claimed, the a thousand diagnoses that they'd previously claimed, they were all wrong because what it actually was was toxic mold.
That is the thing which was taking Jordan right, and now they've identified it, they'll be able to resolve the problem.
Or or maybe not.
Maybe not, Matt, because Mikila came out with another tweet saying, look, things have gone bad.
He's suffering from pneumonia, sepsis, he's got chronic inflammatory response syndrome due to decades of mold exposure.
And she said they don't have a better explanation for what's going on at the minute than spiritual attacks, Matt.
Spiritual attacks.
That's that seems to be what is a courage.
So let me just let Mikhaila lay that out for you.
Like I said, the summer's been exceedingly difficult and terrifying.
Dad's condition is complicated by the fact he can't take most medications without suffering from severe paradoxical reactions, which limits treatment options.
Like I mentioned, I believe there's a spiritual element at play here.
It's been hitting my dad and my family hard this summer.
In August, the day dad was brought to a hospital by ambulance.
My newborn Audrey was also brought to a hospital by ambulance within hours of each other.
It was unbelievable.
This was the second time this summer we had brought Audrey to the hospital after she almost died from near heart failure at six weeks old that is exceedingly rare, and they couldn't find a cause for.
She was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, which seems to have resolved.
Praise God, but it's not something that happens.
So it seems to be, you know, it's it's manifested in actual physical consequences, but it it it does appear to be spiritual in nature.
And you can tell because you know there are things befalling her daughter and so on, which are inexplicable.
The health service has no interest.
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