Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 47: The DTG Conspiracy UNMASKED, Quantum Idiots, and Triggernometry Prophecies
Aired: 2026-04-03
Duration: 44:04


=== Post-Swim Glow and Showers (02:30) ===

[00:00:26]  Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's supplementary material edition with the psychologist Mattel Brown and the cognitive anthropologist of sorts, me, Christopher Kavanagh.
[00:00:40]  We're here post swim for Matt.
[00:00:44]  I wasn't swimming, but he was swimming.
[00:00:46]  So we're basking in the post physical exertion glow.
[00:00:51]  I am.
[00:00:52]  I'm glowing.
[00:00:53]  I'm glowing.
[00:00:53]  I'm feeling good, which is unusual for me.
[00:00:55]  I need more of this.
[00:00:57]  You know, Chris, I had an experience with the pool, big school group.
[00:01:03]  The normal changing rooms and showers and stuff were closed because apparently all of the kids have to be alone in there.
[00:01:10]  And so that's fine.
[00:01:13]  This is going to change directions.
[00:01:14]  Yeah, I'm glad the kids, you couldn't access them, got it?
[00:01:17]  Yeah.
[00:01:18]  I couldn't access either them or my normal showers.
[00:01:22]  Okay, that's the thing, right?
[00:01:24]  But here's the thing, right?
[00:01:25]  The pool, as you know, I love it.
[00:01:27]  Brand new, 15 meter undercover, peated.
[00:01:30]  Semi outdoor, beautiful pool.
[00:01:32]  It's even got a great cafe.
[00:01:33]  I love the cafe.
[00:01:35]  But there's one downside to it, which is that the showers, Chris, they're only cold water and they're kind of low pressure.
[00:01:41]  You know, they're kind of, you know, measly showers.
[00:01:45]  So I waited to use the disabled, you know, single one, you know, disabled unisex one.
[00:01:52]  Chris, the shower.
[00:01:54]  Oh my God.
[00:01:55]  Beautiful hot water, really good water pressure.
[00:02:00]  I may have to pretend to be leg disabled.
[00:02:03]  Disabled.
[00:02:03]  Leg disabled from acid.
[00:02:05]  These disabled people, they've had it too easy.
[00:02:09]  They're getting all these cars.
[00:02:10]  They've got it too good.
[00:02:11]  That's right.
[00:02:12]  Yeah.
[00:02:13]  Well, I accept that because sometimes, like, actually, especially when my kids were younger, you know, when you're escorting your children to the bathroom and in Japan, the disabled or easy access bathrooms or whatever, they're just, We're like a lot better.
[00:02:31]  I mean, obviously, they have changing things and stuff for very small infants, but in general, there was just, you know, more room to maneuver.
[00:02:37]  So, look, I'm not complaining.
[00:02:40]  I'm not complaining.
[00:02:41]  Look, it makes sense.
[00:02:42]  It's like a kind of justice, you know.
[00:02:44]  You've got it.
[00:02:45]  Social.
[00:02:47]  Yeah, you know, you've got it tough.
[00:02:49]  You've got a disability of some kind.
[00:02:50]  At least have a nice shower.
[00:02:53]  I'm for it.
[00:02:54]  I'm not anti disabled people.
[00:02:56]  Nobody.
[00:02:56]  Good.

=== Anti-Semitism in AI Discourse (15:34) ===

[00:02:57]  Nobody make a thread about this.
[00:02:59]  Well, I, yeah, I just to be clear, I do understand why.
[00:03:05]  I do too.
[00:03:06]  I do too.
[00:03:06]  Don't explain it to us.
[00:03:09]  We are being tongue in cheek.
[00:03:11]  No need to explain it to us.
[00:03:12]  We get it.
[00:03:12]  We get it.
[00:03:13]  Well, actually, speaking of people posting on Reddit, Matt, I do have to point something out because I just find this incredible.
[00:03:23]  And it's finally piercing the veil.
[00:03:28]  It's took people a while to work it out, Matt, but the conspiracy has been unmasked.
[00:03:34]  Our handlers have been identified.
[00:03:37]  And I need to read out a conspiracy theory of sorts.
[00:03:42]  Or is it unmasking of our actual motivations that came to light on the subreddit?
[00:03:47]  You'll be surprised to hear it's in response to Andy posting up a clip where we are criticizing a kind of progressive leftist person, Emma Viglund, promoting the Epstein conspiracy theories, right?
[00:04:02]  Do you remember we covered that?
[00:04:04]  Yep.
[00:04:05]  Okay, so in response to that going up on YouTube, there was a predictable response with some people not liking the criticism or disagreeing and so on.
[00:04:16]  And then in the Reddit comments, this beauty came.
[00:04:22]  So, in general, there were people saying, for example, I kind of naturally drifted away from DTG over the past year or so, especially after their decoding of Naomi Klein, which seemed very lazy.
[00:04:36]  Nothing I've seen coming out from them since, from the Gary saga, even though I agree it's full of shit, to Scott Galloway and whatever the last one was.
[00:04:45]  It just seems all very low effort and uninteresting.
[00:04:50]  Their overall smug attitude towards anyone pointing out real systemic issues with the modern world, including anyone pointing out how corrupt the elites are and how in bed with Epstein they are, has been enough to turn me away.
[00:05:02]  But these attacks, to satisfy their newfound destiny adjacent audience, Are the last bit of information I need to unsubscribe from everywhere.
[00:05:12]  Okay.
[00:05:13]  So this is, we are only complaining about this promotion of conspiracy theories, like amongst Blind Boy or Emma Viglund or the various other people that we've covered, only because we want to court Destiny's audience.
[00:05:29]  Yes.
[00:05:29]  Right.
[00:05:30]  I see.
[00:05:30]  Yes.
[00:05:31]  Got it.
[00:05:31]  Yep.
[00:05:31]  Yep.
[00:05:32]  So that's what this is, you know, kind of like in the roundabout.
[00:05:37]  And then, They explained this, or somebody else responds to it saying, Yeah, it's definitely interesting how their viewership has fallen off, at least by the metrics I've found.
[00:05:50]  They started getting much more political.
[00:05:52]  The sub got significantly dumber.
[00:05:55]  They started retweeting fucking Drew Pavlo.
[00:05:58]  They switched the moderation team up, but their Patreon subs absolutely skyrocketed all at about the same time.
[00:06:06]  I actually brought up these weird patterns once on the sub and given the ad at the host.
[00:06:12]  And they promptly hid their Patreon numbers, which is kind of funny.
[00:06:15]  Okay, so this is a response.
[00:06:17]  This is a Reddit account called NoArt.
[00:06:20]  It's a random account on Reddit, noArt, about six months old.
[00:06:25]  But so this is the start of it.
[00:06:26]  Okay, so you see some of the issues, Matt?
[00:06:29]  We've fallen off, we've lost our buzz, and we're into Drew Pavlo now.
[00:06:38]  I don't remember being a fan of Drew Pavlov.
[00:06:42]  He's terrible.
[00:06:43]  Where did they get that?
[00:06:44]  We retweeted them or something.
[00:06:45]  Did we do that?
[00:06:46]  Well, I'm sure there is a retweet at some time of Drew Pavlo because he probably.
[00:06:53]  Posted something about someone, and like a retweet on Twitter doesn't equal an entire endorsement.
[00:07:02]  And like Drew Pablo is somebody that was very clear, he was always very partial to getting attention online.
[00:07:10]  He nearly exploded when he got a retweet from Elon Musk.
[00:07:14]  So you could see various warning signs are, but it is fair to say that like a year or two ago, he was mostly posting about kind of critical of Trump stuff.
[00:07:25]  I don't imagine it would be impossible that you or I retweeted Drew Pavlo, but sure, yeah, not a general fan of his.
[00:07:37]  But then, so we switched up the moderation team.
[00:07:40]  I didn't know we did that, but I didn't know we had the power to do that.
[00:07:48]  Yeah, well, technically we do because the head moderator at Reddit, I'm the second oldest there, right?
[00:07:55]  Because they added us, so I could remove all the.
[00:07:59]  Mods, but to my knowledge, I never have or added anyone's.
[00:08:05]  But we switched up the moderation team and then our Patreon subs skyrocketed.
[00:08:11]  All this was occurring at the same time.
[00:08:14]  Now, let's continue on.
[00:08:18]  Curious too, around that time, there was a very obvious organized influence campaign against Hassan Piker.
[00:08:25]  I didn't know much about the guy at the time, but the episode was odd.
[00:08:30]  And it piqued my interest.
[00:08:32]  At around the same time that DTG did their weird hit piece episode on him, I also saw that people who are 100% APAC bought, like Richie Torres, was also repeating the exact same line about Hassan Piker.
[00:08:47]  I think I even saw the same stuff being brought up on some cable news show, Fox or something, I think.
[00:08:54]  I know that these are common tactics for Israeli interest groups.
[00:08:58]  They organize these campaigns.
[00:09:00]  And leverage their contacts and people they have relationships with to repeat the talking points to cause cancellations and de platforming.
[00:09:09]  And the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with is that this was part of an organized campaign, and DTG, with their new skyrocketing Patreon subs but waning viewership, were part of this.
[00:09:21]  It couldn't even really be a coincidence either, because the actual event that they were trying to cancel him for happened many months earlier.
[00:09:28]  But suddenly, these groups of people were all trying to push it.
[00:09:31]  I have to be real here.
[00:09:33]  I think DTG are getting paid.
[00:09:36]  So, this is the person who's got a problem with us criticizing these conspiracy theories from, you know, left of center sources.
[00:09:46]  Yeah, it's in, I mean, they do from other things they've said, but like in this part, this is responding to that previous post about our pivot to court the Destiny audience.
[00:09:58]  Yes.
[00:09:59]  And the wrong math about our metrics being down.
[00:10:02]  They're the same as they've always been for years, but I think they're, you know, probably.
[00:10:08]  Basing it off random YouTube videos or whatever.
[00:10:11]  But like the podcast is just the same as it's always been.
[00:10:14]  And the YouTube is basically the same too.
[00:10:17]  I mean, it's only when we have episodes that are specifically featuring some topic that is in the algorithm that you get a whole bunch of downloads or whatever.
[00:10:26]  So, yeah, I don't know what they're talking about, which metrics.
[00:10:29]  But in any case, their conspiracy is a bit more broke, if you like.
[00:10:34]  They are saying that our episode on Hassan Piker, right?
[00:10:40]  Came at a time when people were critiquing him independently, but that was from people who are mostly funded by AIPAC.
[00:10:48]  So, isn't it suspicious, the timing and the choice to critique Hassan Piker?
[00:10:56]  So, okay, well, okay, Chris.
[00:10:59]  So, let me ask you do you deny being funded by Israeli investors?
[00:11:04]  Oh, man, denial is such a strong word.
[00:11:08]  Our great friends in the Israeli government, like, no, yes, we strongly reject any claim to receiving funding from APAC.
[00:11:20]  Or the Israeli government.
[00:11:23]  Or anybody.
[00:11:24]  Anyone.
[00:11:25]  I'm sorry.
[00:11:27]  Just to be clear, any shell organization from any government, to my knowledge, they are not providing us.
[00:11:36]  And the Patreon thing that he's talking about, the detective work there is quite impressive because as a person that can actually see the Patreon metrics, Matt, I can unveil the secret sauce to them.
[00:11:48]  Okay.
[00:11:48]  So we released supplementary materials.
[00:11:52]  In March 2024.
[00:11:54]  That was the first time that that was released.
[00:11:57]  Okay.
[00:11:58]  That, Matt, this content you're listening to now, this thing where we separated off our jibber jabber into a separate thing which has a paywall in it, that is what skyrocketed the Patreon.
[00:12:11]  That's what doubled the amount of Patreons that we had.
[00:12:15]  Right.
[00:12:15]  Now, the following month, we covered Destiny, the decoding episode on Destiny.
[00:12:24]  So that was like April, whenever we did the Destiny episode.
[00:12:28]  And they are correlating those two events, right?
[00:12:33]  They're seeing a graph and saying, look, it bumped up in the month that Hazan and then Destiny appeared.
[00:12:38]  But with Destiny, the only thing that happened is the same thing that happens if we cover someone like Sam Harris or somebody with an activated user base, where there'll be like a bump of 100 people or whatever for a month and they go away.
[00:12:54]  Get access to like an episode early or whatever, and then they unsubscribe because they're interested in Destiny or Sam Harris, or that's all they want, right?
[00:13:03]  Like, so that's that.
[00:13:05]  So, this person is giving Hazan and Destiny credit for our incredible whatever content strategy and so on, and the Israeli government or their shell organizations.
[00:13:16]  Like, where's my credit, Matt?
[00:13:19]  Actually, I think the credit goes to the patrons who are willing to fling us a few bucks to listen to this jibber jabber.
[00:13:25]  But, well, not really, because they're just being funded by.
[00:13:29]  Israel to subscribe in order to like promote a anti Hassan Piker.
[00:13:36]  Like it's so, it's such an indirect way to advance Israeli interests.
[00:13:49]  That is Baroque.
[00:13:51]  Well, that is good.
[00:13:52]  I mean, what do you do, Chris?
[00:13:54]  Conspiratorial thinking.
[00:13:56]  There's a lot of it about.
[00:13:57]  Yeah, there is a lot of it about.
[00:14:00]  And just to respond to one other point in that, Matt, like whenever something is in the news cycle or whatever, it's not like it usually takes us a couple of months to get through.
[00:14:13]  Like, could they do that, this confirming thing?
[00:14:16]  Is there anything else where something happened and it takes you and I months, if not years?
[00:14:22]  Like, I believe if you listen to our first couple of episodes, we mentioned that we're going to do Ken Wilbur.
[00:14:27]  We did Ken Wilbur.
[00:14:29]  A week or two ago, right?
[00:14:31]  It's Ken Wilbur in the news.
[00:14:34]  They're lucky that there was a couple of months gap between us covering that, right?
[00:14:39]  That is relatively short turnaround for us.
[00:14:42]  So, yes, I just, I like that this is the, you know, the notion is, and in true conspiratorial fashion, it's the damn Jews, Matt.
[00:14:53]  It's the Jews, you know, that is the only thing that could explain that several people are criticizing Hassan Piker.
[00:15:01]  The only reason.
[00:15:02]  That could explain that is like a Jewish conspiracy to coordinate criticism.
[00:15:08]  It couldn't be that there's quite a lot of legitimate things to dunk on there.
[00:15:14]  Yeah.
[00:15:16]  Well, anti Semitism, it's so hot right now.
[00:15:19]  It's very in.
[00:15:21]  Well, yes, this is true.
[00:15:23]  And in any case, there you go.
[00:15:26]  So, our podcast, Matt, is it official that we're claiming that we are not a APAC slash A Zionist slush fund recipient for Israeli influence campaigns.
[00:15:39]  Are we clear that that's not what we're right here at the Cody Nagaros?
[00:15:44]  Yeah.
[00:15:45]  Yeah.
[00:15:45]  Hopefully, we're clear.
[00:15:46]  We're clear.
[00:15:48]  Yeah.
[00:15:48]  Well, what are you going to do?
[00:15:50]  It does come up.
[00:15:51]  It does come up.
[00:15:51]  Like, I saw somebody who didn't like the recent episode with Mickey and it's like, you know, they disagreed with his AI kicks or whatever as well.
[00:16:00]  And then they posted to an article that he, Had written where he was talking about experiences of anti Semitism in his local community, or what he interpreted as anti Semitism.
[00:16:15]  They were like, Are you going to challenge Mickey on his Zionist propaganda kind of thing?
[00:16:21]  And you're like, There is a lot of things that where people are just now kind of like, they're like the Jew hunter from Inglorious Bastards.
[00:16:34]  No, we're not going to.
[00:16:35]  Talk to Mickey about his experiences of anti Semitism because we were talking to him about AI and the fact that you're bringing it up in this completely unrelated context of like, are you going to challenge this Jewish guest about like his experience of anti Semitism?
[00:16:54]  Like, no.
[00:16:57]  Yeah.
[00:16:57]  Yeah.
[00:16:58]  Um, Yeah, it is.
[00:17:01]  It's a little bit anti Semitic.
[00:17:03]  I'm sorry.
[00:17:04]  It just is to make that the center point of everything that we have to talk to him about that.
[00:17:10]  Like, if he's got feelings about October the 7th, is that the right date?
[00:17:15]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:16]  Yeah.
[00:17:17]  And maybe I don't agree with him 100% or I do or whatever.
[00:17:20]  Like, it doesn't matter.
[00:17:22]  Like, I don't feel like grilling a Jewish person about their feelings about that.
[00:17:26]  Or, it's certainly not going to feel obliged to because they're Jewish.
[00:17:30]  That's absurd.
[00:17:31]  No.
[00:17:32]  He's an academic.
[00:17:33]  He's a psychologist and he's doing some research.
[00:17:36]  He's published a bunch of papers about AI, right?
[00:17:39]  Yeah.
[00:17:39]  That's why we're talking to him.
[00:17:41]  Yeah.
[00:17:41]  Yeah.
[00:17:42]  So, well, anyway, so anti Semitism, it's in the air at the minute.
[00:17:49]  And it is telling that that kind of conspiratorial thinking often ends up pointing towards that as the ultimate source.
[00:17:57]  But just to say, Matt, that, you know, I don't want to give the impression that that is what.
[00:18:02]  Everybody does, right?
[00:18:03]  This is like a specific Reddit account, and people commenting on Reddit are already like a subset of a subset, right?
[00:18:11]  So you can often find single crazy comments or that kind of thing.
[00:18:16]  But this is representative of a kind of trend in discourse that exists, which is sort of worrying, which is why I brought it up.
[00:18:26]  Plus the fact that it's a conspiracy theory directed at us.

=== Flawed Reasoning on Reddit (08:23) ===

[00:18:32]  There's no other explanation.
[00:18:33]  I can't think of any other reasonable explanation for this.
[00:18:37]  This is like.
[00:18:38]  The most reasonable explanation is that it's the Jews.
[00:18:42]  Yeah.
[00:18:42]  Yeah.
[00:18:43]  The Jews are funding a small academic themed podcast.
[00:18:49]  Like they'll accept that we're going to do a whole bunch of episodes about sense makers or, you know, criticizing Sam Harris or whatever, as long as eventually, after a couple of years, we drop one on Hassan Piker.
[00:19:03]  So.
[00:19:05]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:07]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:07]  Doesn't hold up, Matt.
[00:19:08]  Doesn't hold up.
[00:19:09]  Well, you know, another thing that I saw that is reflective of that conspiratorial attitude just being around, and somebody else that has credibly been accused of anti Semitic conspiracies, as it happens Cenk Uyghur, the young Turk, actually Hassan's uncle, as it happens, family connection, Matt.
[00:19:29]  He tweeted out this Charlie Kirk's mentor just died in a freak pickleball accident.
[00:19:38]  That's an incredibly strange coincidence.
[00:19:40]  If you're going to say that's not weird, that there are tons of pickleball fatalities, you sound nuts.
[00:19:46]  I don't know what happened, but I don't think it's perfectly normal.
[00:19:52]  Right.
[00:19:54]  Right.
[00:19:54]  Pickleball accident.
[00:19:56]  Yeah.
[00:19:57]  Do you know what pickleball is?
[00:19:59]  Not really.
[00:20:00]  What is it?
[00:20:01]  I don't, well, to be honest, I don't know.
[00:20:03]  I think it's like tennis pop with really big bats and softballs.
[00:20:08]  I think that's what it is.
[00:20:11]  I've got a vague idea.
[00:20:12]  Isn't it when you put the ball on top of a little thing and then you whack it?
[00:20:16]  Like an easy version of baseball with less difficult?
[00:20:20]  I think it's like in general, just like a less difficult or less strenuous version of other types of.
[00:20:27]  Tennis or badminton or whatever.
[00:20:29]  That's the general impression I've got because older people can play it, right?
[00:20:35]  But in this case, Matt, so the context here for the mentor that died.
[00:20:43]  So he was 76 and he had a bad fall.
[00:20:50]  So Cenk Hugo is saying, you know, 76 year old man who had some connection with Charlie Kirk dies after falling badly.
[00:20:59]  When I'm playing this sport, doesn't this?
[00:21:01]  Here's some questions.
[00:21:03]  What's going on?
[00:21:04]  Yeah.
[00:21:08]  Oh, my God.
[00:21:11]  I think all these different examples are like it, Chris.
[00:21:13]  They're all thematically related.
[00:21:16]  There's a common fundamental problem in the reasoning that's happening here.
[00:21:21]  Yeah.
[00:21:23]  Looking for dark, complicated explanations that are connected to your obsessions or.
[00:21:30]  Convictions when far, far simpler explanations or no explanation is required.
[00:21:37]  There is nothing going on.
[00:21:39]  Yeah.
[00:21:40]  And what he wrote in response to this, because obviously it became, you know, like an online thing where everybody was quoting it and pointing out that he's engaging in conspiracy theorizing around it.
[00:21:52]  Right.
[00:21:53]  And he responded You notice that the minute you ask simple questions, you get labeled a conspiracy theorist by traditional media.
[00:22:01]  Are we not allowed to ask about strange occurrences?
[00:22:05]  Or should all good journalists shut up and write down what the government said?
[00:22:10]  It's hilarious to see reporters saying you shouldn't ask questions of the government.
[00:22:15]  I didn't come within a country mile of reaching any conclusions.
[00:22:18]  So it's the very act of questioning the beloved government and the beloved powerful that so offends the press in this country.
[00:22:27]  Yeah, just asking questions, Chris.
[00:22:30]  Just asking questions.
[00:22:31]  Yeah, but the bit that gets me, Matt, is it's so on the nose.
[00:22:36]  You know, like this is exactly the conspiracy theorist pose.
[00:22:40]  Like, I'm not making any suggestions, I'm just reasoning.
[00:22:45]  Isn't this curious?
[00:22:47]  It's very odd.
[00:22:48]  I mean, you've heard Brett and Eric Weinstein do it.
[00:22:51]  So, everyone in our audience can hear it very easily when it's done by blatant right wing.
[00:22:59]  MAGA accounts, right?
[00:23:01]  For the ridiculous thing that it is, and the rhetorical maneuver it is to say that I'm just saying that it's very suspicious.
[00:23:08]  Things just don't quite add up.
[00:23:11]  I'm just asking questions.
[00:23:13]  And then you're not just.
[00:23:15]  Yeah.
[00:23:16]  Anyway, it's very clear.
[00:23:19]  It's very clear what's going on.
[00:23:20]  You know, as we said, thematically connected to all the stuff we were talking about.
[00:23:24]  And actually, on a related point, you know, in general, when things are posted up on YouTube or in Reddit and whatnot, they get feedback.
[00:23:32]  And as suggested by Joe Rogan and you, you should never read the comments.
[00:23:38]  I disagree, Matt.
[00:23:39]  I'm somebody that likes to.
[00:23:41]  Get in there, see what people are saying, maybe argue with people on Reddit and Twitter.
[00:23:45]  It's what I like to do, right?
[00:23:47]  But I actually find it interesting sometimes because you get to see the types of reasoning that are widespread and common and appealing.
[00:23:58]  And in the comment section around our video on Emma Viglund and Joshua Citarella, there was a couple of experiences that I just want to mention.
[00:24:12]  Now, I know how much people enjoy people litigating.
[00:24:16]  Comment section debates, right, in a podcast or Twitter or so on.
[00:24:20]  But there is a reason.
[00:24:21]  So just bear with me here.
[00:24:24]  So, in response to the video, there was a comment, Matt, that highlighted in this one section that we had not played the follow up segment where Emma Viglund was initially sounding like she might endorse Pizzagate conspiracies.
[00:24:42]  But if we had played the subsequent clarification, she would have added in that she doesn't.
[00:24:48]  Think that this is definitely the case, and she's actually, you know, more concerned about X and Y, right?
[00:24:54]  So they heard the initial clip and us commenting on it, and they said, These guys, they cut this off here because they don't want to deal with her elaboration and the fact that she's actually going to go on to say that she's not endorsing that, and they're kind of creating the false impression by selectively clipping, right?
[00:25:14]  Yeah.
[00:25:15]  Now, the problem for them, Matt.
[00:25:19]  Was that had they waited a couple of minutes, they would have found that we do indeed play the clip that they are wanting, the exact clip.
[00:25:31]  We play it in its entirety.
[00:25:34]  And the context does not help that much.
[00:25:37]  No, it doesn't.
[00:25:38]  It does not help their case.
[00:25:40]  Yeah.
[00:25:40]  And their response to that.
[00:25:42]  So, you know, you might then think, oh, well, like, so somebody made a mistake.
[00:25:46]  So they might respond by being like, oh, well, it's good that you played that.
[00:25:49]  I hadn't heard that at the time or whatever.
[00:25:52]  Right.
[00:25:52]  But no, Matt.
[00:25:53]  Their response was, You moved it almost 10 minutes later in your video.
[00:25:58]  That completely changes the perception of what she was saying with I love that theory line you cut on.
[00:26:05]  So the fact that we did play it, but we talked, you know, for five to 10 minutes.
[00:26:13]  No, that is the problem, right?
[00:26:14]  Because we obviously didn't want people to connect those two sections together.
[00:26:20]  I just like, you know, that's the kind of goalpost moving that happens.
[00:26:25]  With like conspiratorial ideation, that you can point out, okay, I think these guys are hiding this thing, right?
[00:26:31]  Because they don't want people to know about it.
[00:26:33]  And then you say, well, actually, it wasn't hidden, and they did reference it.
[00:26:38]  And their immediate reaction is then, okay, so that completely undercuts the point, but there must be a way that it's still a problem.
[00:26:48]  And their response is, it needs to be played in context, which would have made the clip four minutes, by the way, if we had played it, you know.

=== Pizza as a Code Word (11:08) ===

[00:26:55]  Yeah, and uh, I know, yeah, you do get that a lot.
[00:27:00]  It reminds me of the um, the Jordan Peterson defenders, which is no, no, you can't criticize that.
[00:27:05]  You have to listen to the whole 10 episode series, you know, 20 hours of stuff to be able to assess what he's saying.
[00:27:12]  Um, but also, Chris, I mean, what you're describing, which is people doubling down and never admitting they're wrong on the internet.
[00:27:18]  Come on, everyone who's used the internet knows that this is normal.
[00:27:24]  Yes, I know it's normal, but it's just like when you encounter it in terms of people responding to like criticize you for not being thorough enough.
[00:27:34]  Like in a Nuller comment, they were asking us, like, where do we get the confidence that it's likely he committed suicide?
[00:27:42]  And I linked to the report, the like investigation that was commissioned, right, to look into the circumstances around his death.
[00:27:51]  I've read it and it's quite a detailed report which explains, you know, the evidence for why it's likely.
[00:27:58]  Then, when I pointed them to that, this is a different person, but they responded saying, Have you read that FBI report?
[00:28:06]  It has no support for the, as they put it, self unaliving.
[00:28:14]  And then it said all this stuff about the report.
[00:28:16]  But first of all, this report was not written by the FBI.
[00:28:20]  It's not an FBI report.
[00:28:23]  And the report does not reach the conclusion that there's no evidence for him committing suicide.
[00:28:28]  It very clearly states all the evidence for it.
[00:28:31]  But when I responded, noting that it's not actually an FBI report and that it does feature a lot of evidence, they responded saying, Oh, you think there's no FBI material?
[00:28:46]  Included in the report.
[00:28:49]  So, you know, like they are not wrong because although it is a report written by the Department of Justice Inspector General Office, because there's some material from FBI sources in it, that essentially means that they are correct to go in an FBI report.
[00:29:08]  So I know this is people doubling down and not wanting to acknowledge mistakes.
[00:29:14]  But in the context of this video, I think it's indicative of the thing that we were talking about.
[00:29:20]  We're like, Everybody wants Epstein, the current conspiratorial squeaky toy, to be attached and endorse the things that they already believe.
[00:29:31]  And if you kind of play party pooper and say, well, there's no evidence for that, or, you know, this is counter to that, their reaction isn't like, you know.
[00:29:45]  Oh, thanks for clearing that up, Chris.
[00:29:48]  What were you expecting?
[00:29:52]  But I, well, in general, I do think that whenever you try to dunk on someone and you, you know, like you, you do something like you haven't even read the FBI report, it's not a report by the FBI that you should be chastised by the fact that you are displaying like you're getting details wrong.
[00:30:08]  But I know people online don't do that, but it's just very, like the same thing, Matt, happened on Reddit.
[00:30:14]  I was, I engaged in some Reddit debate.
[00:30:16]  I do this from time to time.
[00:30:18]  You don't know if Reddit.
[00:30:19]  You shouldn't, you shouldn't, but you do.
[00:30:20]  Well, you know, we all have our hobbies.
[00:30:24]  And, um, I saw a beautiful illustration of this approach, right?
[00:30:30]  Because, you know, in the Epstein emails, there are mentions of pizza, there's mentions of grape soda a couple of times, right?
[00:30:41]  And these are interpreted.
[00:30:46]  Just like in the previous case, you know, with the Pizza Cake conspiracies, that there are code words for possible child abuse or other like sexually deviant acts, right?
[00:30:59]  They're the code words because people simply can't be talking about pizza and grape soda.
[00:31:04]  Now, to be clear, there is actually a couple of occasions where it seems like there's reference being made to something else.
[00:31:13]  Like there's a suggestion, I think, that there's a urologist in a couple that he's talking about.
[00:31:19]  About, and it may be, you know, I'll bring the grape soda as reference to prescription medication that they shouldn't have or something like this, right?
[00:31:27]  So there are a couple of occasions where it looks like there's a reference being made to something else, but the vast majority of them are in reference to shall we eat pizza at this restaurant or what do you want to order from this menu or are you going for pizza tonight, right?
[00:31:46]  So, except for a handful of things.
[00:31:49]  There isn't this clear code word.
[00:31:51]  So I just mentioned this because I know some people will point out, oh, but, you know, the grape soda thing, that actually does sound odd in the context, right?
[00:32:00]  And yes, there are a couple of things that he references about other things as well, where he appears to be either referencing an in joke of the person that he's talking about or using, like, yeah, a code word, right?
[00:32:13]  But in general, Matt, it is not the case that pizza in these files is a secret word, right, for child pornography.
[00:32:21]  Right.
[00:32:23]  Right.
[00:32:23]  Now, the reason that I mentioned this is that so the whole thing with like the Pizzagate conspiracies, if you remember, it was reading John Podesta and all our Democratic Party members talking about pizza, ordering pizza, and so on, and reading that it was a secret code for child abuse.
[00:32:44]  Because how could people be ordering pizza so much, right?
[00:32:47]  And there's some unusual terms of phrases or so on, right?
[00:32:53]  Yes.
[00:32:54]  Remember, they localized it to this place, Comet Ping Pong, which was mentioned, and they thought, like, in the basement, they would find a secret child abuse ring, right?
[00:33:03]  And somebody went there with a gun, and there is not even a basement in the building, right?
[00:33:09]  So, this was the ultimate thing that kind of took Pizza Gate down when that occurred.
[00:33:15]  People stopped, you know, treating it so much as a joke, right?
[00:33:20]  Now, in response to the episode, people were saying, like, comparing what Emma Viglund is doing to the Pizza Kit conspiracy theories.
[00:33:30]  It's completely wrong because she wasn't endorsing those, right?
[00:33:33]  She was just saying that elites are up to crazy things and the emails reveal that we should be looking into elite pedophile networks, right?
[00:33:45]  And here I'd encourage people, Matt, to go back and listen to the episode, right?
[00:33:51]  Because while Emma Viglund is not endorsing that there's like a child.
[00:33:57]  Pedophile cabal in the basement of Comet Ping Pong.
[00:34:00]  That's true, right?
[00:34:01]  So, not the literal Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
[00:34:05]  She is, if you listen to the clips that we play, there is a lot of talk about murder, potential cannibalism, and other lurid crimes, right?
[00:34:18]  So, it's not the case that she was completely dismissing those things as unreasonable.
[00:34:27]  And she also was suggesting that Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon created QAnon in order to put people off the trail.
[00:34:38]  So she is creating a conspiracy theory around Pizza Kit, right?
[00:34:45]  Around the origin of Pizza Kit, which came from the QAnon community.
[00:34:50]  So, anyway, so someone else responded.
[00:34:55]  And just like Cenk.
[00:34:58]  They said, I was surprised by how little nuance was used by Matt and Chris when examining this exchange.
[00:35:05]  There is something very strange in the overlaps between the Epstein files and what was posted by Q. Could be coincidental, but considering the ways that Bannon seems to have his fingerprints on so many things, it's certainly worth some speculation.
[00:35:17]  Speculating about conspiracies is different than falling into problematic thought patterns and drawing conclusions without evidence.
[00:35:25]  And I don't think there are problems with what Matt.
[00:35:28]  And Chris are calling out.
[00:35:30]  Yeah, so the person saying this is also highlighting this thing about the frequency of pizza.
[00:35:38]  And they say, I think it's because they literally use the word pizza in the Epstein files as a code word, along with plenty of other language that appears to be coded.
[00:35:48]  Then they send a follow up post.
[00:35:50]  I'm saying that the word pizza comes up pretty frequently in Epstein correspondences, and that word in others could be code for criminal activity.
[00:35:58]  And I'm very happy to say that this is.
[00:36:01]  Speculation requires more evidence, right?
[00:36:03]  And when people pointed out you're reading a lot into mentions of pizza, they say, you know, you're reading into my things more than I'm saying.
[00:36:15]  And I just find this frustrating because, like, the person is literally saying, there are thousands of references to pizza in the publicly available files.
[00:36:24]  How often do you text or email your friends about pizza?
[00:36:27]  Seems like a lot, but I'm not trying to argue that that indicates anything.
[00:36:32]  At the same time, as you know, a couple of posts before saying, I think it's because they literally use the word pizza in the Epstein files as a code word, along with plenty of other language that appears to be coded.
[00:36:43]  So they are saying it's suspicious and it's a code word.
[00:36:47]  But when they're pushed on it, they say, you know, I'm not saying that it's actually a thing.
[00:36:54]  I'm just asking, isn't it suspicious?
[00:36:57]  I know.
[00:36:58]  I know.
[00:36:59]  These are all variants of that.
[00:37:00]  I'm not saying it's aliens.
[00:37:02]  But it's an aliens meme, right?
[00:37:04]  Like it's a strategic disclaimer.
[00:37:06]  I'm not saying it's definitely a code word, but I'm just saying it means something because, yeah, anyway.
[00:37:13]  But it's the bit that gets to me is like you can literally say it.
[00:37:16]  You know, I think this is a code word.
[00:37:18]  It's mentioned much more than is normal.
[00:37:21]  So something strange is going on, and you say, wait, are you insinuating?
[00:37:25]  So you are saying that it's like a Pizza Gate style conspiracy that, you know, and they're like, what?
[00:37:31]  You're taking me as.
[00:37:32]  Endorsing anything like that, no, and it's just that you know, the words are right there where you say, I think it is a code word for conspiracy.
[00:37:41]  You're like, So you're saying it's a code word conspiracy, and they're like, Where did you get that from?
[00:37:46]  You know, uh, so there, no, there you go.
[00:37:51]  Well, it's all your own fault for reading Reddit.
[00:37:54]  Just stay away, then.
[00:37:55]  I guess so.
[00:37:56]  And to be fair, it is notable that, like, some of these people's usernames are like Chad Big Cump.

=== Perils of Online Comments (04:22) ===

[00:38:04]  So there is merit to the argument of what do you spend these years after?
[00:38:11]  Now, look, in a bit, we're going to talk about AI productivity, Chris, but talk about threats to productivity.
[00:38:18]  Chad Big Cock, Chad Big Cock there.
[00:38:20]  He's a threat to your productivity.
[00:38:22]  Log off, my friend.
[00:38:24]  Log off.
[00:38:25]  Well, Matt, this is the thing.
[00:38:27]  This is the same.
[00:38:28]  Energy that allows me to interact with people in YouTube comments and Reddit threads.
[00:38:33]  And Loot to List is the same energy that allows me to listen to the various gurus podcasts.
[00:38:40]  You can't have one without the other.
[00:38:42]  This is true.
[00:38:44]  This is the engine that fuels DTG.
[00:38:48]  It comes with its own cost.
[00:38:49]  I've never denied that I am someone that uses forums.
[00:38:55]  We always knew this.
[00:38:56]  So, yeah.
[00:38:57]  But I will say that this is one of the things that I think is interesting and that I actually genuinely do.
[00:39:04]  Find enjoyment and also interest in that, like, you can see all sorts of conspiratorial reasoning and motivated reasoning and whatnot in comment sections on Twitter in reaction to Fred's and so on.
[00:39:19]  It's just, it's all out there.
[00:39:20]  And if you're interested in that kind of psychology and that kind of reasoning, YouTube comment sections are not like the hell world.
[00:39:30]  They're kind of a, you know, a verdant oasis of conspiratorial reasoning.
[00:39:36]  Yeah.
[00:39:37]  A petri dish, if you will.
[00:39:39]  Yeah.
[00:39:41]  And I will also just note as well, Matt, that, like, you know, like everyone else, the worst examples are what stick out to me.
[00:39:48]  But in most comments under our videos and on Reddit and so on, you get a mixture of opinions, right?
[00:39:54]  And you often get people that are very fixated on specific issues or that are very motivated on a particular topic, and they can post hundreds of comments or get into little self-sealing response threads with other people that feel similar.
[00:40:11]  So it is wrong to.
[00:40:13]  Take a segment of like a comment section as representative of the entire audience of something.
[00:40:20]  I'm just cautioning that, like, you know, it's always easy to cherry pick things to highlight like the worst examples.
[00:40:27]  But equally, it is not the case, as people often say, that comment sections don't reveal anything because they're just full of mad people.
[00:40:33]  Because, like, if you look at a trigonometry section, you're going to see the kind of things that trigonometry promote reflected in their comment section over time.
[00:40:44]  I think you're right.
[00:40:45]  But I also have.
[00:40:47]  Cherish the fond belief that in our case, the vast majority of our listeners are not on discussion forums of any kind.
[00:40:56]  Not that there's anything wrong with that.
[00:40:58]  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think many of my best friends are forum contributors.
[00:41:03]  That's right.
[00:41:05]  Me and Chris certainly are, sickos that we are.
[00:41:08]  But I cherish the fond belief that the vast majority are out there doing their thing.
[00:41:16]  They're being lawyers or academics or.
[00:41:20]  Artists, what have you?
[00:41:22]  Yeah, actually, at the weekend, I met a Patreon member who was visiting Tokyo and was like passing through, came out to a bouldering gym, Matt, with me and my son.
[00:41:31]  And he was a Dutch guy of Iranian origin, but interestingly, a previous background in science, like kind of neuroscience y type topics as well.
[00:41:43]  But now, professional DJ, music creator, teaching people how to produce music and a cool guy.
[00:41:49]  And that's one of our audience.
[00:41:50]  He might be in the comment section, so I don't know.
[00:41:53]  I was just saying, he was a normal person.
[00:41:55]  I've seen photos, I wouldn't put it past him.
[00:41:58]  Yeah, that's true.
[00:42:01]  He could be there, but um, no, that was cool.
[00:42:04]  I like those photos actually.
[00:42:06]  Yeah, um, yeah, yeah, very nice to meet you, Navid.
[00:42:09]  I had a good time.
[00:42:11]  My children were enamored as well.
[00:42:13]  So, um, if you're passing through Tokyo, I'm always available in climbing gyms, you know, my native habitat, but um.
[00:42:21]  Be careful when you read the comments, but that's the way it goes, Matt.

=== Decoding Western Civilization (01:38) ===

[00:42:26]  So, did you see anything striking in discourse land as of late?
[00:42:31]  Has there anything that's bubbled to your attention?
[00:42:36]  No, it's been interesting to see the AI discourse is continuing and heating up.
[00:42:42]  Yeah, I know that our point of view isn't probably the most popular one amongst, you know, in our milieu.
[00:42:51]  But yeah, I just find the whole cultural reaction to it really interesting.
[00:42:56]  So, like, you know, there are some sort of people who are boosting it, academics, and saying this is really good for research and stuff, as well as being a little bit perilous, as Odd said, too.
[00:43:10]  And then the replies are like, you should be fired.
[00:43:15]  Oh, yeah.
[00:43:17]  I find this.
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