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Dec. 13, 2025 - Decoding the Gurus
32:37
Gurometer: Stefan Molyneux *Patreon Preview*

In this unlocked bonus episode, Chris and Matt complete their forensic/esoteric/scientific assessment of the charming Stefan Molyneux, consigning him (sadly) to the eternal archives of the Gurometer.

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Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's Gurometer Edition.
This is your friendly bonus content, Matt, where after we've decoded Gurus, we file them away for all eternity in the Grometer, right?
And that's where they come out.
So we have to do that for Stefan Malnew.
I know you're very sad to see him go.
You want to do more content for him, but he'll be greatly missed.
Greatly missed.
He's the people's philosopher, Chris.
I think the audience responded, you know, really warmed to him.
They want to hear more.
Yeah, that's not.
No, can I say, Matt, this does speak to my pathology, but I saw this morning that he had a 30-minute episode about proof that God doesn't exist.
Okay.
30 minutes in 30 minutes.
So I listened to it.
To me, like that should be a fairly straightforward case, right?
For someone to be like.
It's well-trodden ground.
Yes, exactly.
And the thing is, it's 30 minutes.
Probably 20 minutes of it is not really that relevant.
It's just like him.
It's kind of reminded me what you said.
He's bad at his job.
Like he doesn't, he doesn't mention any person's names.
He doesn't mention any of the names of the positions, right?
For what he's arguing for, that kind of thing.
And his argument against God, I can do it in two minutes, Matt.
So this is his slam dunk argument.
You know, that there's categories of things that exist.
There's categories of things that we can imagine exist, but we don't know whether they do or not, like unicorns or deep sea monsters or whatever, right?
But they could plausibly exist somewhere in the universe.
And then there are things which are logically incoherent, like a tall and completely short person, or, you know, like just something that logically is incoherent.
A heavy light thing or whatever, or a squared circle or whatever.
And he says, well, God is one of those like contradictory things.
So therefore it doesn't exist.
That's it.
That's it because he says, you know, could God make a rock that is too heavy for him to lift?
If he could, he's not all powerful.
And if he can't, you know, like this, these kind of like little.
Okay, let me let me just see if you follow his thinking there.
So so he says, by definition, imagined things that involve logical contradictions can't be real.
Yes.
And if God is all-powerful and, you know, everything that God says is, then, then, then they could create things that are logically contradictory.
Therefore, he can't exist.
You know, it's like that, but it's also just, it's all these contradictions that people are very familiar with, which like if God is all-knowing, he knows everything that's going to happen.
But if he's all-powerful, he can make anything happen, right?
But then he, like, if he knew this was going to happen, some event since the beginning of time, then he didn't have the power to change it, right?
Because he's like, it's that.
And it's, that's it, man.
But he spends about 20 minutes talking about these three categories and setting it up.
But again, he's not really doing that.
Like his examples aren't good.
No, it's just like, God, he sucks.
He's not even good when he's doing the stuff, which is not interacting with callers.
You know, like he could literally just get a philosophy 101 book, repackage it in his format, but he can't do that.
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm sure sounds pretty sounds pretty bad.
Like I am, again, as you know, I'm not interested in this kind of thing, but you can't help but be aware of the various philosophical arguments for this, that, and the other around.
And, you know, so I'm aware of them.
And, you know, a lot of them are pretty sophisticated, both the ones for and against.
So I know the shape of them.
That tack that he's taking sounds like, you know, it's like a children's crayon drawing of a.
I mean, he's not good at it.
And like he was a new atheist kind of anti-theist guy before, right?
And so the funny thing with him is, as we heard, he now does all the Christian pandering stuff, right?
But he's such an arshole that he can't give up fully things that he's argued before.
So even though he was like, you know, constantly making the digs about, you know, atheism, they're all stupid and that.
But his form of atheism is perfectly coherent and logical and, you know, universal.
And his form of atheism is just the 1990s online atheist arguments.
Not even presented well.
So anyway, there you go, Matt.
He's still going on.
His content continues to flow.
Like, let me just have a little look here.
I'll tell you what his last few shows have been.
How do I make friends?
Question mark.
Colin show.
My biggest life regret, Twitter space, how to fight bias.
35 minutes.
Then on the existence of God, the terrible truth about secular ethics, life in a group home, the true nature of God.
Why don't you listen?
These are all from this week, all of these.
So busy mana, Stefan.
Well, there we go.
So now that's him.
He's still doing his thing.
Now we do our thing, Matt, and we put him into the grometer.
Okay.
We do.
That's our job.
That's our job.
It's his job to figure out whether or not God exists or not.
It's our job to put him into the grometer.
Each of their own.
That's right.
That's right.
So let's do that.
So the grometer, an instrument that we use based on our must be wielded with great responsibility.
A great tool.
It's 11 features which are recurrent amongst the secular guru set.
And we rate the people that we cover on one to five on it and tally up their scores.
And it's not like an official score that will last for all eternity.
It's just our subjective opinion, man.
Okay.
So score them your own way, but we'll go through the 11 and score them ourselves.
And the first of them, Matt, the first is Galaxy Brainness.
Tendency to issue confident opinions across a constellation of topics.
Okay.
Galaxy Brightness.
I would say, I think, look, it's either 4.9 or 5.0.
I'm off way in between in that range.
Well, yes, it is.
It's five, Matt.
We got to give him five.
He has nothing that he doesn't confidently opine on.
And in this thing about God, by the way, he was just referencing all these physics.
You would have hated it because he's rattling it off as if, you know, like he's an expert in physics and biology and all these kind of things.
But it's just like a show of it.
So yeah, he's a five.
He's a five on this.
What's next?
This could be a quick episode, Chris.
I mean, like, I don't really feel like we need to justify these scores.
Like with Galaxy Brainness, I mean, you just read out all the topics he covers.
And according to him, he's the final authority on every single one of them.
You know, he actually more and more.
Like, he's reminded me of a few different people, but he reminds me of, what's his name?
The guy with the 500 IQ.
Oh, Chris Langan.
Chris Langen.
Like, that's another dumb shit that thinks he's a genius.
Quite right.
Quite right.
Yeah.
And another, you know, white nationalist.
So there you go.
Yeah, they have something in common, these people that are real pieces of shit.
I'm not saying everyone who's hard to change is a piece of shit, but I just say that there are some political points of view that, you know, mesh quite nicely.
Attract them.
Yeah.
Attract them.
Yeah.
You still haven't told people.
I feel like you're stalling for time.
What is the second feature on the ground?
The next one is cultishness, Chris.
Cultishness.
Would you like to make your case why you think he is or isn't cultish?
I mean, you have to convince people.
I mean, I just, the fact that he was well known for running an online cult, I think, gives him five in this automatically.
But also everything that he did, all the binary black and white monarchy and worldview and the undermining of his followers.
And you're like the poor Drago.
Yeah, poor Drago, that bullying, that playing, you know, sweet and then and then controlling.
Yes, we saw a bunch of the signs even in just this very casual content and he's done a lot worse.
So yes, this dimension's called cultishness, but he's not cultish.
He is a cult leader.
So he gets a five.
We'd give him more if we could.
That's right.
Anti-establishmentarianism, like taking a contrarian stance against all the institutions are lying to everyone all the time about everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's also a five on this, isn't he?
Like, I mean, he likes Trump, but the Trump administration is sort of unique in that its pose is that it is, you know, dreaming the swamp and all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, he's anti-establishment in the way Alex Jones is, which means like he's supportive of, you know, the kind of racist misogynist elements of establishments, but his pose is still five.
Yeah, yeah.
His political alignment is obviously where it is.
But yeah, I think, again, a bit like cultishness, he blows the doors off a bit because he's anti-establishment in the same way that the Westboro Baptist Church is anti-establishment, right?
Like it's all corrupt.
The whole system of, you know, it's not just the government, it's your family.
You know what I mean?
It's everything.
So there is a sort of deep fundamental corruption to the entire modern world.
And a cult like Westboro Baptists and probably most of them basically sell the message that within their family, you will achieve a kind of purity and be free of the various kinds of depravities that are out there in the rest of the world.
And that is what he does.
So five.
Five, five, five.
It's your turn.
What's next?
Oh, my God.
Okay, so grievance mongering.
Oh, my God.
I really, you know, these episodes are incredibly valuable because you think, oh, it's just like, you know, it's obvious.
There's not much to say.
But honestly, it makes you think about things specifically that I wasn't necessarily thinking about all the time on the recording.
And it brings it all together.
So grievance mongering, it can be a personal, like personal grievance, like a grievance, you know, the kind of attitude of someone who feels they're being personally aggrieved all the time.
And then, but it's also kind of inculcating a sense of grievance in your followers, right?
Because that's a powerful tool as well.
And I think there was a third pillar of grievance mongering that I innovated, but I've since forgotten.
Do you remember what that was, Chris?
Wait, did you know you didn't name the thing about like having a list of enemies, right?
I mean, you didn't innovate that.
I demanded that that be included, like the people who, you know, they bring up unbidden their, you know, their kind of pet peeves and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
That's kind of like an indicator.
Yeah.
Remember how he responded to Margaret Atwood, for example, when he just mentioned her, right?
Like witch, which, evil bitch, right?
Like that's the level of grievance you're dealing with there.
So yeah.
Yep, yep.
So yes, incredibly high, incredibly high on all counts.
Like he became aggrieved like several times in the material we listen to.
I know.
Talking to like fawning followers who adore him.
That's how thin-skinned and prone to grievance he is.
And he obviously inculcates a sense of grievance in his followers too.
You know, he wants everyone to believe that they've been fundamentally wronged by everyone, but most particularly their mothers and the women of their life.
So, yeah, fuck him.
He's terrible.
Five.
Yeah.
Yep.
He is terrible and he does deserve a five for that.
So grievance mongering five.
Self-aggrandizing narcissism.
This is like shooting disabled ducks in a barrel, Chris.
It's just funny.
It's just too easy.
He's making it too easy for us.
I know.
Yeah.
So he's five.
He's five.
There's not even any room for debate around that.
That's that's what he is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he's doing well so far.
Just yeah, just it oozes through in everything he says and does.
He's doing well.
He's look, he's shaping up.
This is shaping up to be a top score, Chris.
I don't want to do this.
And it's not going to, it's not going to affect my future ratings.
I just want to say he's in the running to push off he who shall not be named from these birch.
Okay.
Okay.
Let's see.
So the next thing is Cassandra complex, like warning about say that women are going to effing end this world.
And yeah, so I'm saying this because this is predicting incoming doom that you have foresaw that others have not.
And I again, he's going to get five for this for me, Matt, because that's, he's all about that.
He's all about, you know, if people don't listen to him, Western civilization is on its way, on its way out, I should say.
So yeah, I'm giving a five.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm tempted to give him a five.
You can't stop me.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, he's been getting a lot of fives from me.
Does he say there's a five?
Okay.
Is there anyone who's more Cassandra complexy than him?
Who else have I?
Who else?
The last five from me was Scott Adams in 2025.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, I think he's going to get a five from me too.
I think I've made my mind up.
Yeah.
It's all right.
I just looked at some of my other fives and I'm like, yeah, he's definitely at that point.
He's in there.
Yeah.
And next.
Revolutionary theories, you know, claimed to have totally revolutionized a particular field.
They've got incredibly profound and deep contributions that probably unrecognized.
The rest of the idiots don't understand.
Would you say that's true, Chris?
Yes, he's got multiple ones.
Like he mentioned one about universal secular morality, right?
Which he developed that nobody paid attention to.
But that's just one.
That's just one of many systems.
Self-published books.
Yeah, and remember, no, they're not systems, because that implies that they're...
Yeah, they're just like a system, like not the system.
Yeah, it needs to, it needs to be a universal truth.
So yeah, although I think, yeah, I think he got triggered because he said your system.
That was the thing.
You're not allowed to say, if it's the system, that's okay.
So yeah, he's five on this.
He's absolutely five on this.
Absolutely five on that.
Yeah.
again he he reminds me of langham in that respect um langham with his what's langham's theory called again but uh Oh, isn't it like linguistic geometric unity or something like that?
I can't remember.
It's something involving God and physics and philosophy.
Ah, who cares?
It always, whatever.
The next one, I don't know.
Actually, this is interesting.
Pseudo-profound bullshit.
To what extent does he utilize, you know, jargon and fancy terms and decorative scholarship to buttress his authority?
The funny thing is, like, I think he does do this, like dress up mundane points as if they're philosophically deep, but he doesn't do that by using so much jargon, you know, like this one where he was talking about God, for example, he was speaking in like an authoritative tone about his position, right?
And he was saying, you know, the epistemic knowledge that we have is like this, right?
And so he does use terms to look big, but he's, he's not kind of the same as like the more, you know, Eric Weinsteinian side of the gurusphere.
So on this, this might be for me, the first, I'm going to go three, middle of the road for this.
I would agree with you.
I do agree with you.
Like he doesn't do the jargony type stuff, but he, of course, is incredibly pretentious in his mode of speaking and his use of those flowery.
Oh, also the pauses.
You just reminded me of the pregnant pause.
Yeah, the pauses.
It's not just what's said, Chris.
It's what's not said.
While you wait, you can also, but also the metaphors, right?
Like, like that, the metaphors.
I mean, God, the metaphors.
I mean, where do they slot?
I mean, like, you know, I take a pretty broad view of the pseudo-profit bullshit.
I think of it as all of those decorative elements.
Yeah.
You're right.
So what are you going to give him?
I think I give him a four just because he doesn't, like you, like you rightly said, he doesn't do some, you know, one type of them at all.
Yeah, you're, you're right.
And you talked me up to a four.
So, Andy, if you're recording this, it's a four.
You need to immediate that.
Then conspiracy mongering.
Yeah, he does.
I mean, he didn't do this this much in the content we listen to, but he is the whole white replacement, like women are plotting things, the communists are taking over society, right?
The woke have infiltrated everything.
He does have a conspiratorial worldview.
So, yeah, so I'm going to put him up at four, even though he didn't do this this much in the content we listened to.
He didn't know where he does.
Didn't outline any conspiracies in it.
No, I, yeah, I know he does too.
So, we'll give him a four, but look, if we he could go higher on that if we just listened to something slightly different.
I know, I know.
We just take the right episode.
That's why I think he's not, he's not getting a low score on that.
But for profiteering, um, yeah.
Well, I was just going to say, I mean, you know, what in terms of what he's currently doing, I did actually look in terms of what is what it costs to become a member of his various things.
And while, you know, he invites donations and is quite happy to receive 500 bucks or a thousand bucks or whatever if you'll send it to him.
But it only costs 10 or 20 bucks to be in his little sanctuary.
So, currently, yeah.
Yeah, bargaining half the value for money.
You should be paying money not to ever hear from him ever again.
But what's he done in the past?
Has he got any dirt on him, Chris?
Has he been done for like really extorting a lot of money from people?
He did run like an online cult, right?
Which strongly incentivized people to supply money, you know, to support his endeavors and cut off connections to the family.
And like you, I mean, you heard in the content we heard, we heard him say to Draco or Drago, whatever that guy's name was, you know, well, I mean, I think we're doing something more important here, but if you've got to go back to your family, and I think that was just like a small window into his whole, you know, technique.
But I do think he's kind of like he absolutely is as manipulative as the other people that we've saw on the cult season.
But I think he's kind of like a budget cult leader in a way.
Like he has not really reached the heights of the other millionaire leaders in that regard.
So I think by cult leader standards, he isn't profiteering as much as some of the best of them.
But by normal human standards, yeah, he's he is.
But I don't know the details of his scheme.
So I'm like, like you, I'm kind of inclined to put him somewhere in the middle of the road.
But I just feel like there's going to be lots of touchy stuff.
So I'll put him 3.5.
That's where I'm going to go.
Yeah, I feel the same way.
It's kind of like any money that he's earning for anything he does.
I feel like it's a profiteering given what he's provided.
Yeah.
That's true.
That's not what it means.
So well, the last one, Matt, let's see.
This one's going to be a bit tricky because I don't know if it was there.
It was a bit subtle.
Moral groundstanding.
Did you detect any hint of stuff?
He seethes with it.
Seethes with me, Chris.
Yeah, he does.
He does.
He does.
He presents himself as like Jesus Christ, basically.
He is way over the top.
I'm giving him a five.
That's good.
We are done.
We are done.
Yeah.
And Matt, and a rare occasion, if you look at the conversion to the percentage, we are both Sympatico, 92.
So he's high.
That puts him at the level of Reverend Moon, Brett, and Eric Weinstein circa 2021.
But I realized I gave Jordan Peterson, Jordan Peterson gets 100% from me.
Oh, yeah, Jordan.
Well, that's Jordan Peterson 2025.
He has 100%.
Jordan Peterson of 2020 or thereabout when we recorded his first, he was at 81.
So he's kind of went up.
But yeah, Peterson is, I mean, that is accurate, right?
Peterson is the embodiment of the secular guru template.
I feel him and Eric Weinstein are the alpha and Omega of the guru night sky.
The what? Psychosphere?
The guru psychosphere.
Yeah.
But you know what?
We're not finished yet because there's a quickfire round where you have to say yes or no.
Your fault for creating this, the binary measures.
These are bonus points.
They don't actually affect the score, but it's good to keep track of what people are doing.
So here we go.
I'll correct you when you get if you get things wrong.
Monomania, a single theory to explain everything.
Does he have that?
Well, he's got several, hasn't he?
Has he got several theories that explain everything?
Yeah, I mean, he does.
The thing is, they're all his, but that doesn't really count, right?
Like, so he's got, yeah, it's diversified.
Yeah, monomania kind of contradicts with the galaxy brainness, right?
Well, except, but like Gary will always relate things to his like economic understanding.
Oh, well, this guy will relate everything to your mother.
So oh, yeah, that is true.
Yeah, he does have that.
Okay.
That's right.
That's right.
Shilling supplements?
No.
I don't think he's no, I don't think he does that.
Broicity?
Did he?
No.
What about when he sang that Rocky horror picture show or when he talked about showing up in the corridor?
To be honest, he's he's queer-coated, Chris.
Yeah, yeah, he's in the closet, queer-coated worth of the amount that he talks about, like you know, rip and all that kind of stuff.
So, yes, um, but that's not broken.
That's a very sort of faux debonair pretentiousness that is.
I know, I mean, not to disparage queerness, but you know what I mean?
He's he's not a bro.
He's he's like, no, you're right.
He's not.
I mean, I think he might like to see himself as that, but he isn't.
And charisma, well, again, we're trapped in this cache 22, which is he, I don't, he he is carrying, he is charismatic in the same way as the other cult leaders are in the sense when it like you know what I mean, like Keith Rena may make may make our skin crawl, but you make some people go weak at the knees.
And the same is true of Stefan, I'm afraid.
No, you're right.
So he does deserve it.
I don't want to give it to him because how much I dislike him, but it does make sense.
Um, neologisms, like inventing his, he does do this.
He didn't see it in the thing, but he has his own, like, you know, universal moral and ethical system and various things.
And he, you know, defooing and all that kind of stuff.
Um, that that applies.
So I'm telling you, Matt, yes, the answer is yes for this.
Yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
Um, strategic disclaimers.
He did do that.
Yes, I think I did hear some of those.
Yeah, because he would say, you know, like, no, that's just my opinion.
And it might be, but as we heard, it's incredibly fixed, but he did say that a couple of times.
Like, I'm someone that really enjoys discussing the debating and hearing different opinions.
And like, are you?
Are you, Stefan?
Um, okay, he gets one for that.
Rebranding other people's theories as his own.
Uh, don't think so.
Uh, yeah, I think he doesn't give credit, but he's not, he's just like kind of that's because he's so lazy.
Yeah, uh, my loquaciousness opens me very much.
Yes, it's oh, it kind of feels dirty to name what he does as Lucretius, but there we go.
And this one will be a hard one.
Never admit an error.
Is that tick, tick, tick.
Yes, that's blown the unfortunately.
That's caused the garometer to explode.
He'll have to send it in for maintenance.
You know that clip we've got of Jordan Peterson.
Now, this is just a suggestion.
It might well be wrong.
You will never hear those words past Stefan Mohani's lip.
Well, no, actually, that's one thing is he does do that.
He does do the no, I, you know, this is just like he said, you know, here's two possibilities, and there are other possibilities and blah, blah, blah.
So he does.
No, but it's incredibly strategic, right?
Like, like with Jordan, like Jordan Peterson will speculate wildly, but I can still imagine him going, no, no, no, that is wrong.
You know what I mean?
You know, actually, it's this.
He'll change his mind.
And you know what I mean?
Yeah, within certain domains, he'll change his.
Yeah, you're right.
Christianity is more important than that.
Yeah, within all certain domains, right?
But like when he's speculating about something.
But with Stefan, whenever a thought enters his head, and even though he might position it as speculative or possibly possibilities, it is purely strategic.
There's strategic disclaimers every time.
That's it.
Well, there we have it.
By the way, Matt, you've probably noticed this in the grammar sheet, but if you have a little look there, just underneath my bonus points, do you see the little visualization I just popped in?
It's in your role where the bonus points would be.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's clever.
Yeah, yeah.
That's just a little visualization of where all the gurus are based on the average of your and my score.
So keep that in there for us to interesting.
There's like a spectrum, but there are a couple of wiggles in that line.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
John Vervaki is like a cutoff point.
Then you get to Andrew Huberman.
John Vervecky, where is he?
He's down at the bottom.
Yeah.
I know at 33.
How have you numbered them?
Oh, yeah, there he is.
Oh, right.
The score.
You mean the average score?
Oh, yeah.
There is a like a kind of, what would you call that, Matt, and statistics, like a cliff?
Yeah, an inflection is what you'd call it.
An inflection point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We got an inflection point at about 33 between Vervaki and Huberman.
Then you got 56.
Yes.
And then at Douglas Murray at 56.
And then you get up to Jamie Williams.
It's probably just not.
Yeah, but it's probably part of this is just by the clumping of right the scores, the fives and the fours and whatnot.
But in any case, just a little useful thing to see.
I'll post it up in the Patreon for the people to have a little gambler at.
And that's it, Matt.
He's in the grammar.
We don't need to think about Stephanie Kin.
I should probably unsubscribe of his feed.
And next up is Scott Galloway, right?
Scott Galloway.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
That should be better.
That should be better.
That's not for cult season.
That's just for like a break.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We can't do another Stefan Mollener kid from your not straight away.
Not straight away.
Yeah.
Well, there we go.
Good job.
Mischief managed and all that.
And we'll be back soon enough with another wonderful guru.
And you'll probably, I mean, if it is Galloway, I'll say it now.
He'll be better than Stefan.
But it's whoever we cover, it's going to be hard to have Stefan.
But let's see.
Maybe another cult leader can do it.
We'll find out.
Thanks, Chris.
See you later, everyone.
Bye-bye.
Come with us and fire up your gourometer.
It's time for cult season.
Get out your decoder rings.
This is cult season on the DTG.
It's time for cult season.
It's time for decoding this cult season.
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