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Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a

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Speaker 1: cult or a high control group, or if.

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Speaker 2: You've had experience with manipulation or abusive power that you'd

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Speaker 2: like to share.

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Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three

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Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.

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Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight.

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Speaker 1: Or shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.

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Speaker 3: Trust me, trust for trust me.

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Speaker 4: I'm like a swat person. I've never lived to you,

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Speaker 4: and we never have a live.

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Speaker 2: If you think that one person has all the answers,

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Speaker 2: don't welcome to trust Me. The podcast about cults, extreme

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Speaker 2: belief and manipulation from two non gurus who've actually experienced it.

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Speaker 3: I am low Lablanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.

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Speaker 2: Today our guests are hosts of the podcast Decoding the Gurus,

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Speaker 2: cognitive anthropologist Christopher Kavanaugh and psychologist Matthew Brown. They have

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Speaker 2: come to talk to us about all things Guru. There's

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Speaker 2: my voice being.

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Speaker 3: Six, excuse me.

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Speaker 2: They'll share how they define a guru, some of the

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Speaker 2: classic guru tricks on their garrometer, including when someone markets

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Speaker 2: themselves as possessing some kind of hidden knowledge, and why

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Speaker 2: it can be hard to navigate trusting experts without lending

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Speaker 2: gurus with academic credentials in one area too much credence.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk about why the biggest Internet gurus tend to

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Speaker 1: skew more mail, some of the gurus the guys have covered,

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Speaker 1: including Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and many more,

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Speaker 1: and why we need more.

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Speaker 3: Scientists with mass appeal.

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Speaker 2: That's right, baby, So before we dive in with them,

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Speaker 2: and I love this episode.

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Speaker 3: I really really like these guys.

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Speaker 2: I want to be their friends and I wish they

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Speaker 2: lived in LA But before we dive in with them, Megan,

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Speaker 2: tell me your culties thing this week.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, gurus come in all shapes and sizes,

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Speaker 1: even the shape and size of Chad day Bell. Right,

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Speaker 1: remember Chad, Well, she's back in the news.

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Speaker 3: Her trial is trying.

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Speaker 1: To pick up, but she keeps asking for unhinged things.

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Speaker 1: She just asks to go meet with them so they

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Speaker 1: could go over their case, because what the.

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Speaker 3: Family is saying is she's trying.

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Speaker 1: To see if he's still her par or if he's

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Speaker 1: about to turn on her at trial.

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Speaker 3: So she I can't even imagine what's.

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Speaker 1: Going on in this woman's mind right now, she's just

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Speaker 1: killed her two kids, but she still believes in this guru.

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Speaker 1: But she's being told he's about to turn on you

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Speaker 1: in court. He's not who you think he is. So

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Speaker 1: lots of stuff going on over Oh.

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Speaker 2: My god, that is so crazy. I cannot imagine. Everything

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Speaker 2: about that is insane.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what about you? What's the cultiest thing that happened

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Speaker 3: to you?

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Speaker 2: So for people who don't know that much about OCD

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Speaker 2: or whatever, you can have different themes, like it doesn't

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Speaker 2: really matter. It can latch onto different themes and it

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Speaker 2: obsesses over that thing and it can completely change. One

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Speaker 2: of my themes is existential OCD. But I just couldn't

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Speaker 2: stop thinking about time and the linear nature of time

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Speaker 2: and how we're all going to die and I don't

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Speaker 2: believe in an afterlife, and it was just like, I mean, listen,

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Speaker 2: this is I will probably continue to think about it

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Speaker 2: for the rest of my life. Obviously, because I am

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Speaker 2: not a religious person, it can be hard to tell

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Speaker 2: the difference between like how much of this is like

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Speaker 2: the normal amount of thinking about something versus ruminating. And

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Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I'm going to just try to

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Speaker 2: actually explore this topic and like do a little dive

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Speaker 2: and like, see if there's anything out there that I

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Speaker 2: can connect with that will I'll feel some way about.

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Speaker 2: So I started reading. So I asked Jack for some

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Speaker 2: books on existentialism for Christmas, which he got me.

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Speaker 3: That is so funny.

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Speaker 1: It's the most wonderful time you're gonna die.

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Speaker 2: It's basically my brain. Yes, I'm like another Christmas. I'm

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Speaker 2: thirty five, I'm definitely dying like tomorrow.

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Speaker 3: So I start.

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Speaker 2: I'm recurrently reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camu,

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Speaker 2: which I was resistant to reading because my ex loved

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Speaker 2: this book. But I'll tell you, reading it is so helpful,

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Speaker 2: even though I'm not even to the meat of the

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Speaker 2: philosophy yet, because just because he's like going through different philosophers,

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Speaker 2: you know, in the history of existentialism or whatever, and

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Speaker 2: they're different approaches and their different ways of dealing with

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Speaker 2: the like harsh reality of death or whatever, and just

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Speaker 2: that alone has unlocked something for me where I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 2: I'm not like alone floating in the universe dealing with

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Speaker 2: this like angst. There is a long history and a

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Speaker 2: long tradition of people being like, oh my god, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to die, What do I do?

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Speaker 3: I'm going to die? What do I do?

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Speaker 2: And something about like just connecting to these like dead

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Speaker 2: white men or whatever who had ideas on how to

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Speaker 2: deal with the reality of death has been really helpful.

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Speaker 2: And it I'm bringing this back to cultiness because I

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Speaker 2: feel like so much of what I experience, like why

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Speaker 2: it's difficult is that I feel alone in it, is

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Speaker 2: that I don't feel like I have a community in it.

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Speaker 2: And even like old dudes on a page can make

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Speaker 2: a difference because I'm like, I'm not the only one

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Speaker 2: having these thoughts. I'm not the only one who doesn't

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Speaker 2: believe in God. I'm not, you know, like who's trying

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Speaker 2: to figure out a way to like have meaning in

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Speaker 2: my life without some kind of religious beliefs.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, well you seem perfectly primed to join a

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Speaker 1: cult about existentialism totally. I will just say too, Like

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Speaker 1: I was talking to somebody the other day and she

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah.

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Speaker 3: It's so weird.

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Speaker 1: I was raised religious and my boyfriend was talking to

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Speaker 1: me and he was like, yeah, you know, I've never

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Speaker 1: even really thought about dying.

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Speaker 3: And she was like, what are you talking about.

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Speaker 1: I had to do that now I lay me down

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Speaker 1: to sleep, if I die, these blah blah blah every

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Speaker 1: night when I went to bed, and there is just

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Speaker 1: this like weird discrepancy between people who are raised religious.

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Speaker 1: And obviously that's not across the board, but I do

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Speaker 1: feel like it's easier to obsess on if you're super

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Speaker 1: focused on it when you're little.

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Speaker 3: And to be clear, I think.

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Speaker 1: Our society deals with death horribly and the people who

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Speaker 1: never think about it are so blindsided and they're like, totally,

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Speaker 1: my grandma died and I'm like, right, what did you

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Speaker 1: think she was gonna do?

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Speaker 3: No, like it's not happening.

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Speaker 1: And then I will just also say that interview yesterday

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Speaker 1: that's coming out next week, the guy says something interesting

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Speaker 1: where he was just like, yeah, maybe this conspiracy theory

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Speaker 1: is real. Maybe it's not, But what the hell can

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Speaker 1: I do about it? Because mine, if nothing happens after

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Speaker 1: you die, that's great to me.

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Speaker 3: I would love just a long map, but I'm scared

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Speaker 3: of hell.

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Speaker 1: And it's like it's something about that spoke to me

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Speaker 1: where it's like, all right, what are you gonna do

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Speaker 1: about it?

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Speaker 3: Like now isn't the time to focus on?

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Speaker 5: That?

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Speaker 3: Is the time to focus on.

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Speaker 1: Living and that'll do what it will do when when

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Speaker 1: you die. But for now, like you got to figure

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Speaker 1: out your meaning and your shit to do.

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Speaker 3: I love that.

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Speaker 2: I mean it's so interesting. I feel like so much

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Speaker 2: of that come is related to the therapy that you

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Speaker 2: have to do with OCD, where it's like, Okay, what

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Speaker 2: if it is worst case scenario, how how will you

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Speaker 2: then live your life? Let's say it is the worst

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Speaker 2: thing happens, Okay, then what right?

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Speaker 3: Then what?

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Speaker 2: And obviously I don't believe I'm not going to die,

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Speaker 2: but there is like my body is like fighting against

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Speaker 2: the fact that I'm getting older and fighting against the

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Speaker 2: fact that every day is the same even when it's different.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: So I'm super Chell.

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Speaker 2: But to your point about the way that America or

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Speaker 2: Western culture in general deals with death, I think that's

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Speaker 2: such a big thing that I've noticed in my life

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Speaker 2: is just like I've always just been taught avoid death,

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Speaker 2: don't think about it, don't think about it, like we'll

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Speaker 2: just go to heaven and it'll be fine, and then well,

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Speaker 2: but what happens when you don't believe in heaven anymore?

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Speaker 2: Just don't don't look at the dead body, don't deal

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Speaker 2: with it, you know, And I would love if there

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Speaker 2: were a paradigm shift culturally where it was something we

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Speaker 2: talked about more and tried to accept and like integrate

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Speaker 2: into our lives.

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Speaker 1: You know, as a child who is constantly around death

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Speaker 1: and dead bodies and people dying.

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Speaker 3: Don't do it to kids.

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Speaker 1: But as adults, it's time to like face the music

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Speaker 1: and deal with it and maybe talk about it and

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Speaker 1: help people who are dying and you know whatever. Yeah, totally,

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Speaker 1: But I think kids too too wrapped up in death.

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Speaker 3: And again, I'm sure there's some death.

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Speaker 1: To duel out there with her five kids, and they

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Speaker 1: love death, and that's like for them. I'm just saying,

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Speaker 1: I'm definitely not better for having been to fifty open

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Speaker 1: casket funerals a year. Why so many because the people

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Speaker 1: in our religion were so fucking old.

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Speaker 2: Oh and you have to go.

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Speaker 3: To everyone's funeral.

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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, well that's that's too much. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it was a little too much, But I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Watching Cocoa, for example, I was like, oh my god,

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Speaker 2: there's so many better ways to like deal with death,

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Speaker 2: and even like the Jewish death rituals, which it's just

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Speaker 2: like longer. It's not like you have a funeral and

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Speaker 2: then you bring a castle and then that's it and

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Speaker 2: no one talks to you again. You know, there's like

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Speaker 2: a community around it. Like I don't know, I just

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Speaker 2: think there are better ways than what we're used to.

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Speaker 3: But love it.

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Speaker 2: Maybe an episode for another day, Charlie, all right, should

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Speaker 2: we talk about gurus now?

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Speaker 3: Let's do it? Okay. Trust Me is brought to you

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Speaker 2: Welcome Chris Cavanaugh and Matt Brown from Decoding the Gurus.

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Speaker 4: Thanks for invading us, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: To be here. For anyone who is not familiar with

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Speaker 2: your podcast, can you guys just tell us a little

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Speaker 2: bit about your background, your focus of research, and what

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Speaker 2: led you to start the podcast.

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Speaker 4: Age First, Seniority Killing inspired at Kevanagh.

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Speaker 5: Chris, there's an anthropologist and he's got a bit of

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Speaker 5: a background in religion and ritual and that kind of thing.

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Speaker 5: It touches on stuff to do with shaman's and the

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Speaker 5: way that those ideas flirter around. Anyway, I'm not doing

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Speaker 5: a very good job anyway. My background is psychology. I'm

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Speaker 5: a professor at a university in Australia and I've looked

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Speaker 5: at you know, why people believe strange things, anti vaccination,

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Speaker 5: believes complementary alternative medicines, that kind of thing. And we're

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Speaker 5: both terminally online, so we via Twitter and the infosphere,

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Speaker 5: we became more and more aware of these figures like

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Speaker 5: Jordan Peterson, less well known people like Brett Weinstein. We

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Speaker 5: realized that they sort of are a bit like the

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Speaker 5: old fashioned gurus, like spiritual gurus, in the sense that

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Speaker 5: they provide people with like an entire worldview to be

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Speaker 5: members of a club. I guess provide meaning for people

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Speaker 5: as well. So we started calling them like secular gurus,

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Speaker 5: and we were going to write about it like academics do,

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Speaker 5: but we thought, no, look, let's talk about it for

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Speaker 5: a bit first, and so we haven't written about it

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Speaker 5: and we've just been doing this podcast instead.

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Speaker 4: I didn't expect him to introduce me, but I appreciate it.

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Speaker 2: For him.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's very old the sometimes, but yeah, I'm

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Speaker 6: a cognitive anthropologist by teaching the psychology department in Japan,

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Speaker 6: I'm a researcher and Oxford at the same time, but

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Speaker 6: I specialize in like ritual psychology and the cognitive science

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Speaker 6: of religion, So the gurus and.

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Speaker 4: Conspiracy theory, communities and stuff are tangential interest but are

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Speaker 4: becoming increasingly a mean focus. But a lot of the

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Speaker 4: same psychology applies.

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Speaker 2: Why is Japan where you have landed?

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Speaker 4: Oh, for a variety of reasons, but merely my research

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Speaker 4: for my PhD was on psychology, and Japan is a

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Speaker 4: very good environment for ritual activity without very intense feelings

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Speaker 4: of belief or commitment to doctrines, so it's kind of

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Speaker 4: a nice environment for that. And then this was not

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Speaker 4: the primary reason for coming here, but my wife is

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Speaker 4: also Japanese and like we now live here and have

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Speaker 4: children here, so that helps as well.

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Speaker 2: Cool. So how do y'all define a guru? I think

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Speaker 2: I read that you have a gurun? Can you tell

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Speaker 2: us about that?

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Speaker 5: Yes, we have very scientific, very rigorous thing called the garometer.

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Speaker 5: We didn't want to just be throwing around this word

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Speaker 5: or label or category, Willie Nelly. We also feel like

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Speaker 5: there are grades, there are degrees of gurunus as well,

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Speaker 5: so we thought we'd be clear about what we mean

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Speaker 5: by it. So the grandmother is like a helpful framework

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Speaker 5: for us to organize these features. And we also score

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Speaker 5: how gurusm quantify this because a psychologists like to do

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Speaker 5: that whenever we can't. So there's about ten different dimensions, domains,

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Speaker 5: whatever you call them, but certainly cultishness, galaxy brainness.

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Speaker 2: What does that mean?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: What is that?

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Speaker 5: That's that's from this meme. I don't know if you've

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Speaker 5: seen it with Oh yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: Oh I love it.

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Speaker 5: Okay, it's so good, isn't it? And you know you

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Speaker 5: saw people like Steve Jobs, you know, I think that's

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Speaker 5: what that character was based on, who is kind of

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Speaker 5: like a tech guru. But it's that they're into with

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Speaker 5: ideas that are like too profound, too deep, too complex

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Speaker 5: for the average mind to comprehend. Also, they have like

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Speaker 5: kind of a polymathic ability to apply their wisdom across

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Speaker 5: multiple different domains. They're that good. So you know, Elon

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Speaker 5: Musk is a good example of this, right, He's according

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Speaker 5: to his fans and himself, he's capable of literally brain

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Speaker 5: surgery and rocket science. So so yeah, like there's lots

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Speaker 5: of different features there. We could list them off and

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Speaker 5: you could pick out the ones that you're interested in.

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Speaker 5: But the self aggrandizement and we feel like a bit

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Speaker 5: of narcissism goes along there too, is pretty important, I

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Speaker 5: think for the glue that holds the gurus together.

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Speaker 4: In terms of core dimensions. Those the fact that people

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Speaker 4: are offering a way of understanding the world or a

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Speaker 4: way to interpret things. And then when you have these

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Speaker 4: constellation and factors and they're not always there, you know,

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Speaker 4: for all of the figures that we look at, they

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Speaker 4: can be there in different degrees, but when you have

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Speaker 4: them together, you have like charismatic figures offering interpretations for

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Speaker 4: across a wide array of domains and claiming kind of

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Speaker 4: hidden knowledge that you can gain, you know, by basically

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Speaker 4: becoming a part of their community, listening to what they

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Speaker 4: say or in long form podcasts. The traditional concept of

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Speaker 4: like guru from the I think Sanskrit or that kind

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Speaker 4: of thing, the religious guru. We aren't focused so much

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Speaker 4: on that, but in the way that people are applying

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Speaker 4: that in the modern environment to like claim authority, well

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Speaker 4: or not they actually can provide what they claim, like

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Speaker 4: generally answers no, but it's kind of incidental to people

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Speaker 4: being guru. So we have tried to look at like

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Speaker 4: figures like Cardsig and Robert Wright, people that we don't

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Speaker 4: think are actually trying to like exploit people, and instead

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Speaker 4: just see what kind of dynamic are consistent and recurrent

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Speaker 4: in which ones are like specific two particular figures you guys.

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Speaker 2: Have covered the Weinstein's Brett Weinstein and Eric Weinstein. I

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Speaker 2: should clarify, not Harvey Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, I.

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Speaker 4: Wrote the Robin Bangelo.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and there are a lot of names that I

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Speaker 2: wasn't familiar with, and I'd be very curious to hear

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Speaker 2: about some of those at some point. But have either

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Speaker 2: of you followed a guru to any extent in your life?

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Speaker 2: Is that part of it let you on this journey

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Speaker 2: or it was just more a fascination of watching other

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Speaker 2: people do it.

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Speaker 4: We did do two episodes where Matt and I picked

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Speaker 4: people that we regarded as like guru ish figures to us.

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Speaker 4: But in my case it was a Jesuit priest who

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Speaker 4: was popular in the nineties and eighties, Anthony de Mello,

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Speaker 4: who kind of did a Christian mystic kind of thing.

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Speaker 4: But I mean, as far as I was involved with him,

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Speaker 4: was just I listened to some of us talks and

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Speaker 4: thought they were good, so I didn't follow it particularly well.

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Speaker 4: That's why we did Carl Sagan because Matt regarded him

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Speaker 4: as a form of adventure. Maybe you can speak well

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Speaker 4: or that's happened, But in my case, I was interested

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Speaker 4: in like introspective practices and Meddititian tradition. So that's part

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Speaker 4: of the reason I ended up studying Buddhism and the

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Speaker 4: history of Buddhism and university, but not so much gurus particularly.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I think Carl Sagan's a good example of how

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Speaker 5: someone can be a guru, but not really a toxic guru.

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Speaker 5: So Carl Sagan, you know, he wears the turtlelegs. He

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Speaker 5: talks about the wonder of space and so on, and

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Speaker 5: encourages you to think about these cosmic things and so on.

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Speaker 5: But I think where he is kind of what it's

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Speaker 5: really being healthy and not toxic is that he doesn't

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Speaker 5: claim special revolutionary wisdom that you can't get anywhere else.

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Speaker 5: He's not saying you have to follow him and you

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Speaker 5: should forget about all those other scientists. The kind of

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Speaker 5: stuff that he's talking about or was talking about, was

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Speaker 5: very much based on the orthodox scientific knowledge and.

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Speaker 2: Actually just a expertise.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he had actual expertise, and you know

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Speaker 5: that there are a lot of specialities within astronomy and physics,

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Speaker 5: of course, and he would certainly refer to literature and

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Speaker 5: that that's different from what more toxic gurus do. What

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Speaker 5: they tend to do is they diminish other sources of knowledge,

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Speaker 5: other sources of authority, and encourage you to So we

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Speaker 5: have this feature in the Gorometer called anti establishmentarianism. We

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Speaker 5: really love the awkward, awkward names, but you know that

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Speaker 5: really does capture what they do. They set themselves up

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Speaker 5: as an alternative epistemic essentially, which is closed, I suppose,

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Speaker 5: and the conspiracy theorizing provides part of the rationale for

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Speaker 5: why people shouldn't trust the institutions like everyone else out there,

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Speaker 5: the universities, the experts. That the people you can really

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Speaker 5: trust is them.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting that you've said that because I was just

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Speaker 1: watching a documentary on black Holes and I was like,

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Speaker 1: whoa These people worship Stephen Hawking.

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Speaker 3: He you know, they would just be like, here's.

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Speaker 1: Some tea, here's everything, like Steven Stephen Stephen, And I

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Speaker 1: was like, holy shit, this is like a religion. But

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Speaker 1: then they would ask him stuff and sometimes he'd be like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, or ask them or whatever, and then

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, so that's why he's not bad.

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Speaker 3: So it's very interesting.

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Speaker 2: He has he need in some questionable behavior.

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Speaker 1: Well, he definitely cheated on his wife and got remarried,

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Speaker 1: which is just such an amazing feat to do when

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Speaker 1: you can't talk.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think about it a lot.

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Speaker 1: But you know, as far as as being their guru,

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Speaker 1: I do think that he didn't pretend to have all

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Speaker 1: the answers.

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Speaker 2: What do you guys think of him?

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Speaker 5: Well, I think i'veerad his books and I think he's

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Speaker 5: pretty good. He's not like Calsak, and I guess I mean,

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Speaker 5: he is even more so than Calsak, and he did

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Speaker 5: quite important work around black holes and stuff. As to

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Speaker 5: his character, I don't really know, but I think it's

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Speaker 5: the case that he and when someone is perfectly non toxic,

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Speaker 5: if they genuinely are pretty special, it's or famous in

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Speaker 5: some way, shape or form, then they're naturally going to

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Speaker 5: attract to kind of groupies and like fans who and

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Speaker 5: the dynamic may not always be particularly healthy, even when

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Speaker 5: the guru themselves perhaps isn't deliberately driving it. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like once you get to the point

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Speaker 2: where you have fans and you have that adoration, it

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Speaker 2: just almost inherently becomes a little bit toxic because you're like, wow,

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Speaker 2: people are listening to me, I'm important, and I feel

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Speaker 2: like it's really it would be very difficult to resist.

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Speaker 5: Chris has been get doing this ever since we started

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Speaker 5: the podcast.

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Speaker 4: It's difficult to manage. And you know, I actually I did.

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Speaker 4: I did remember that the in in Northern Ireland, whenever

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Speaker 4: I was attending meditation sessions for the first time, there

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Speaker 4: weren't that many in and it wasn't a big thing strangely,

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Speaker 4: but the group that organized them were a group called

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Speaker 4: the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, and after moving

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Speaker 4: over to London and later I subsequently found out that

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Speaker 4: they have been quite quite legitimately accused of having culpish

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Speaker 4: tendencies and the founder is a like a very guruish

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Speaker 4: guy who has you know, a palagem and all that

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Speaker 4: kind of thing. And there was also sexual abuse scandals,

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Speaker 4: including by the guy that taught me the meditation, so

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Speaker 4: that is true. Although I didn't experience any of that,

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Speaker 4: I kind of second time got that and I didn't

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Speaker 4: really get strongly involved with that except from attending meditation sessions,

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Speaker 4: but I guess I did have first had the experience

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Speaker 4: because of that. I just, yeah, it such that these.

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Speaker 1: People have such good information, you know a lot of

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Speaker 1: them do. They have really cool tools and stuff to share,

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Speaker 1: but then it gets so wrapped up in this guru

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Speaker 1: meter where the other stuff comes in.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and I do remember, like as a teenager, that

442
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 4: the guy who was leading the meditation sessions, who was

443
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:20,200
Speaker 4: one of the main people accused of like sexual abuse leader,

444
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:24,680
Speaker 4: he had a very charismatic personality. You know that maybe

445
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 4: the first time I properly encountered charisma in person, and

446
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:34,439
Speaker 4: that that's definitely something that I think it helps to

447
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 4: experience firsthand. You know that you can meet someone and

448
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:43,040
Speaker 4: they seem so magnetic and they you want to spend

449
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:45,800
Speaker 4: time and you want to listen to them, but it

450
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:49,280
Speaker 4: doesn't actually mean what they're saying or what they're doing

451
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 4: is good in any sense totally.

452
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:55,080
Speaker 2: I mean, we talk about how if somebody is charismatic,

453
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 2: it's a red flag.

454
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:57,360
Speaker 3: We push them away.

455
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:02,119
Speaker 2: We go no, no charisma, We're pushing ourselves a y

456
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 2: I'm interested in this idea of like academic credentialism, and

457
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,639
Speaker 2: this idea that like Jordan Peterson can have an area

458
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 2: that he actually does know about, he actually does study

459
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 2: or teach about, and then we'll speak to all of

460
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 2: these other areas and people will take him seriously even

461
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:24,040
Speaker 2: though he knows he knows jack shit about those other

462
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:26,719
Speaker 2: areas of life. Is that a thing that you see commonly.

463
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:28,239
Speaker 2: I mean you kind of touched on it earlier, but

464
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 2: I would love to hear a little more about that.

465
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think credentialism is a is a tricky thing

466
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:38,719
Speaker 5: because how to put this, a lot of people with

467
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:43,960
Speaker 5: PhDs or with jobs as an academic I'm not very

468
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 5: good even in their own field.

469
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 4: Right, not just the gurus.

470
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 5: And whereas you have me and Chris that you know

471
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:55,959
Speaker 5: we have solidly media, We are not showing off, not

472
00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 5: falling behind. But I do make a point of hitting

473
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 5: up Google scholar and checking out the actual research backgrounds

474
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 5: of our gurus that come from academia or people with

475
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 5: PhDs anyway, and it's often pretty thin. It's often pretty thin.

476
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 5: So I'm not saying like someone like Jordan Peterson is

477
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 5: doesn't everything about psychology. He certainly does, but he's not

478
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 5: one of the leading lights in the field. He doesn't

479
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 5: have a strong research background, and he actually has a

480
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:30,439
Speaker 5: genuine research background. It's pretty thin. But then you have

481
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 5: people with PhDs with like really no research background, like

482
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 5: Brett Weinstein or his partner Heather Haying, who though they

483
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 5: frequently make reference to their deep evolutionary biology knowledge which

484
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:52,360
Speaker 5: informs their entire worldview, they actually have no track record

485
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 5: in that area to speak of, and actually demonstrate many

486
00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 5: times that they don't really understand the topic that they're

487
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,959
Speaker 5: trained in. One the dirty secrets in academia is that

488
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 5: if you hang around long enough, you will be given

489
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 5: your PhD. It is actually not the high bar that

490
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,360
Speaker 5: that we think of it, So I guess the issue there.

491
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 5: So to get to your question, the credentialism is a

492
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 5: tricky thing, like there isn't like a hard category of

493
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 5: someone's an expert someone's not an expert. That there are

494
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 5: lots of people who who don't have formal backgrounds in

495
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 5: a particular area and are really fantastic on it. Chris

496
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 5: is going to hate this because I've mentioned it like

497
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 5: five times, but a good example another is this, like

498
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 5: you know, we've listened to a history podcast with the

499
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 5: guy who did history at Rome and he's doing a

500
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 5: revolutions podcast.

501
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:45,640
Speaker 4: He doesn't have any foul.

502
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:52,880
Speaker 5: But it's a good it's a good illustration. Whereas someone

503
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 5: he's an excellent popularizer of history. I don't think he's

504
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 5: got relevant background in it, but he certainly knows a

505
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 5: lot about history. So yeah, it's a tricky. It's a

506
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 5: tricky one, and I think people do struggle in terms

507
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 5: of the popular discourse, and there's all this arguments about

508
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 5: trusting the experts or not trusting the experts. I think

509
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 5: it's hard for people to calibrate or gauge the degree

510
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 5: of trust they should be assigning different figures.

511
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 4: There's also the I would note that like Matt is

512
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 4: talking about people that are over inflating the credentials, but

513
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 4: there are people who win Nobel prizes, right, there's the

514
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,640
Speaker 4: so called Nobel disease because it's so common that later

515
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 4: in life Nobel Prize when its go on to endorse

516
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 4: like pseudoscience or crank all time. The theories and those

517
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 4: figures that we've colored covered like Peter McCulloch and Robert Malone,

518
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 4: who are two doctors that went on Joe Rogan and

519
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 4: kind of advocated in different ways anti vaccine things. And

520
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 4: Peter McCulloch has an extremely impressive research career, like he's

521
00:26:56,240 --> 00:27:00,679
Speaker 4: a huge amounts of vapor, huge amount of citations. Robert

522
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 4: Malone is kind of inflating his history, like Matt said,

523
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 4: but he also does have a legitimate history in like

524
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 4: mainstream research. But in that case it's actually I think

525
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 4: one of the issues is that people can have credentials

526
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 4: and they can be legitimate experts, and it can still

527
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 4: be talking absolute nonsense. And you pointed out, Lola that

528
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 4: like with Jordan Peterson, like I remember I went to

529
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 4: watch one of his lectures about the psychologist, Oh God Frankel,

530
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 4: about just you know, the who was involved in in Yeah,

531
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 4: Victor Frankel, because I was I was teaching a course

532
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:43,880
Speaker 4: in him, and there was like a lecture from Jordan

533
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 4: Peterson and Victor Frankel, and was like, yeah, okay, you know,

534
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:49,159
Speaker 4: let's let's see what he said. And he said so

535
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 4: little about Frankel. It would maybe like seven minutes about

536
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,880
Speaker 4: Frankel and an R fifty of just going into the

537
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 4: you know, Jordan Peterson's.

538
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,440
Speaker 2: In my way things yeah, yeah, are saying we need

539
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:04,120
Speaker 2: to define things.

540
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that tendency to like not differentiate between your

541
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 4: much less well established like ideas and and kind of

542
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 4: speculation versus established psychology theories or that kind of thing.

543
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 4: I think that's a hallmark that like gurus like to

544
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 4: mix them together and relying on therefore they that they

545
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 4: gain from association to like legitimate bodies of knowledge.

546
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 3: Tills one loves to do that.

547
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: What legitimate bodies of knowledge is she doing?

548
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:37,320
Speaker 1: I mean she says that she whatever, we can go

549
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: into it later, but she acts like she's an expert

550
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: on every subject.

551
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 2: Idea, Yeah, well they all that is. Yeah, that's the thing.

552
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: It's crazy, Yeah, I mean it seems so hard to

553
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 2: parse for just the average person who maybe doesn't have

554
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: like a discerning eye for valid research and how current

555
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 2: it is and what specific topic it's on. It's like

556
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 2: our kind of rule of them we talk about it

557
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: is like, don't go to one person or like one

558
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 2: type of person for all of your information or all

559
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 2: of your worldview, because generally that's going to be unhealthy

560
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 2: if it's all coming from the same source.

561
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 5: It is the challenge of the modern world to like

562
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 5: how to cultivate like I think they call it an

563
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 5: epistemic network, like how to cultivate your sources. For heaven's sake,

564
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 5: don't like do your own research in the sense of

565
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 5: going and pouring over the raw data, doing your own

566
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 5: kind of basic research, because honestly, the modern world is

567
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 5: too complicated for that kind of thing. If you're if

568
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 5: you're trying to trying to look at spike proteins and

569
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 5: things like that yourself, then you're you're doing it wrong.

570
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 5: What you need to do is find people who are

571
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:47,479
Speaker 5: good sources of knowledge on the particular topic that that

572
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 5: is relevant. So I think that there's a bunch of

573
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 5: heuristics people can use and red flags to apply, but

574
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 5: a really good one is avoid the people that have

575
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 5: just power shoot it into this topic. Now it's become

576
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 5: a big thing. Like if you've just did in climate science,

577
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 5: then listen to people that have been working on climate

578
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 5: science for twenty years perhaps and yeah, actually have a

579
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 5: track record. So Jordan Peterson, I think is claimed Chris,

580
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 5: how many books has he read on climate science?

581
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 4: Over two hundred?

582
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 5: Over two hundred, he says, But don't go to him

583
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 5: if you're interested in worried about vaccines. Then you can

584
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 5: go to someone who's been working on viruses and vaccines

585
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 5: long before COVID came along, and they'll give you the

586
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 5: good information.

587
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 3: But the problem is that person isn't going to be entertaining.

588
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, the problem, Yeah, yeah, you guys said that. You know,

589
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 4: charisma is a warning sign, right, But that's that's a

590
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 4: problem because like for most people, it isn't like charisma

591
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 4: is a sign that you know, the person is entertaining

592
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 4: and giving good information. And Matt has often talked about

593
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 4: how the gurus that we cover they're better at appearing

594
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 4: scientific than the scientists. They sound more and they often

595
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 4: look more like the stereotypical image of a scientist, and

596
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 4: it is hard to compete because you know, if you talk,

597
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 4: of course, there's exceptions. You know, there are science popularizers,

598
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 4: there's need the Grass Tyson and stuff who people who

599
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 4: can are cardsagan for that matter, But lots of normal scientists,

600
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 4: the kind of people who would be able to respond

601
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 4: to anti vaccine claims, they're not media trained and they're

602
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 4: not particularly charismatic, and they add caveats to the things

603
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 4: that they're saying, which meet them sound uncertain and it

604
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 4: is really hard. And Matt and I are very cynical people,

605
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 4: very like critical, black and hearted academics, and we find

606
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 4: when we're listening to the people that we know are gurus,

607
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 4: if we just listen to them and just like absorbed

608
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 4: the spiel of like you know, stopping down and trying

609
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 4: to work, it's convincing because it sounds really good. And

610
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 4: I think, like we're all social primates, so you know,

611
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 4: there's just cues that we pick up on that if

612
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 4: somebody is confident, if somebody appears to be talking in

613
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 4: like specialist language and to have a legitimate history, that

614
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 4: those are cues that you should pay attention. And they're

615
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 4: kind of like I think, it's really hard to overcome them.

616
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 4: So that's why we don't look down on people who who,

617
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 4: like you know, fall for guru figures, because they're really

618
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 4: anybody could and in the right circumstances.

619
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 1: Amen, yep, that's absolutely also believe we need a cult

620
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: a meter.

621
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 2: And we do. Yeah, yeah, talk about it. A lot

622
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 2: of these figures that we're talking about are men, and

623
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 2: a lot of their audience, sizable portion of the majority

624
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 2: of their audience is men or are men? Why do

625
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 2: you think that is what is the need that is

626
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 2: being filled? Like what is happening?

627
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're not really sure. We've talked about this before

628
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 5: with some of our guests, so Helen Lewis for instance,

629
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 5: and we had a bit of a chat about this.

630
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 5: I think podcast is people who are big figures in

631
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 5: this you know, infosphere generally this that there would be

632
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 5: a gender waiting towards men? Would I be right in

633
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 5: thinking that?

634
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:36,880
Speaker 4: Do you think depends on the topic.

635
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, gone, your audience is certainly. Yeah, I'm just thinking

636
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 5: of the you know, it's like a cliche that the

637
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 5: sort of the male podcast bro. But but I was

638
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 5: I was gonna add that caveat that when you get

639
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 5: to specific topics like complementary, alternative medicine, you know, alternative

640
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,719
Speaker 5: health and well being, that kind of thing, then you

641
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 5: see the waiting and in fact, the gurus tend to

642
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 5: be women. So I don't I'm not really sure. Maybe

643
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 5: maybe it's just purely a bit of a cultural thing

644
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:18,279
Speaker 5: where in terms of the males tending to predominate, it

645
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 5: could possibly be. I mean, there are some sort of

646
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 5: behavioral sex differences when it comes to ration, pulsivity, and

647
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 5: risk taking in terms of you know, some of those

648
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 5: cliches about you know, like ned are so confident even

649
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 5: when their opinions are stupid. That's that's like the stereotypes.

650
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 5: And I think, you know, part of that is grounded

651
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 5: in a very well established psychological traders, which is impulsivity

652
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 5: and risk taking. It's the same reason men tend to

653
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 5: have more car accidents, they tend to commit more crimes,

654
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 5: they tend to do a bunch of things, drink too much.

655
00:34:54,400 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 4: Just remember, I remember the objection which the journalists hel

656
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 4: Lewis brought up with real as that point last time,

657
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 4: that it's young that that tria is well established but

658
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 4: often associated with young men, where most of the people

659
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 4: we cover our middle aged. Like the gender disparity thing it,

660
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 4: like Matt says, it depends on which realm you look to.

661
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 4: The conspiratuality guys who have a podcast focused on like

662
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 4: the spirituality spheres and the kind of collapsing into conspiracy rhetoric,

663
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:31,280
Speaker 4: that that does seem more to have a greater gender

664
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 4: parody or maybe even the waiting towards women. But in

665
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 4: our case it could be that there's like I think

666
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 4: this falls into the debate bro new ifeist potential area, right,

667
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 4: the id W when you look at the characters and

668
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 4: that you do have people like Christina Hoff Summers and

669
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 4: Debra So, but they also tend to be talking primarily

670
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 4: about gender issues, whereas the gurus that we cover are

671
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 4: either mostly cultural war or they're startling themselves as like

672
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 4: science science figures. And yeah, I think the fact that

673
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 4: they do tend to pick up young male audiences, you know,

674
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 4: might be to do with the whole supposed meaning crisis

675
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,320
Speaker 4: and that kind of thing. But I don't I don't

676
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 4: have I don't think we have a good theory. Has

677
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 4: the like why there's so many men that are willing

678
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:35,720
Speaker 4: to talk like that probably talk more.

679
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: With each other and get their answers from like emotionally

680
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 1: connecting with each other. And then men are like, I've

681
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: got a voice of God in my head. Yeah, like

682
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:44,720
Speaker 1: a guy.

683
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:46,440
Speaker 3: That looks like me saying this shit I believe. I

684
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 3: don't know.

685
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 2: Also, I just want to define IDW if anyone doesn't know,

686
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 2: intellectual dark Web that includes Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, Benhapiro,

687
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 2: these kinds of guys. Yeah, Sam Harris, but then he

688
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 2: sort of removed himself from it because everyone was losing

689
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 2: their minds. So these are the types of figures I'm

690
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 2: talking about, obviously, Like you know, that's also we've also

691
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 2: discussed how like the sort of more spirituality new age

692
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 2: stuff tends to be more women. But in this particular case,

693
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 2: like Bloop, I love it like her, but in this case,

694
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 2: I can't think of a figure and correct me if

695
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,160
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, because you guys would know better because you're

696
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,279
Speaker 2: thinking about this all the time. But I can't think

697
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 2: of a figure like a Joe Rogan or a Jordan

698
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 2: Peterson or a Ben Shapiro who is a woman who

699
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,439
Speaker 2: has that level of following. Yeah.

700
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, we struggled as well. I mean we covered Gwyneth

701
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 5: Paltrow and Mikhaela Peterson is Jordan Peterson's daughter now has

702
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 5: her own Brene Brown.

703
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, Bernie Brown. How much of what was her

704
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 2: score on the guometer?

705
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 4: She didn't do too badly in terms of she didn't

706
00:37:58,120 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 4: score that highly.

707
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 3: It's a good thing.

708
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. She she straddles the kind of Ted talk

709
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 4: like space more and that that is like a prime

710
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 4: retail space for people that would be gurus. But it's

711
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 4: like the same kind of space that you find Rucker

712
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 4: Bragman or like public intellectuals, you know, and there isn't.

713
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,959
Speaker 4: We are not saying nobody can be a public intellectual

714
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 4: or have any you know, their own theories on things

715
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 4: without being toxic gurus. But yeah, Brittnee fell when we

716
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 4: covered her more into like the self help kind of space,

717
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,840
Speaker 4: and that's not particularly appealing to me and map, but

718
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 4: that might be cultural and personal.

719
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 3: She's great.

720
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think of the men in my life and

721
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 2: kind of like observing them and their feelings about the

722
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 2: culture wars in the past few years. And I do

723
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 2: think a lot of people, even when they're you know,

724
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 2: their heart is in the right places and their values

725
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 2: are like in theory, aligned with mine. There is this

726
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 2: sense of like I don't like no one wants me,

727
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:11,919
Speaker 2: Like I don't belong in a group where like I'm

728
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,840
Speaker 2: unwanted because of this like deep division that's been happening.

729
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,240
Speaker 2: And I guess I just like I see, like Elon Musk,

730
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 2: who's the next Oh, I can't wait to listen to

731
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 2: that one. He's It stresses me so out out so

732
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: much to go on Twitter rado. But I it's just

733
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 2: seems like there there aren't really any voices. I mean,

734
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 2: there's you guys, and there are few, but there aren't

735
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 2: really any voices for people who are like sort of

736
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 2: disillusioned with feeling attacked all the time, whether or not

737
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 2: that's real, That aren't this total opposite like, oh well,

738
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:54,240
Speaker 2: fuck woke is a fuck canceled culture, Fuck the left,

739
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:56,479
Speaker 2: let's own the Libs. You know, it just doesn't seem

740
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 2: like there's really a figure in between who's reached critical

741
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 2: masks at all. I mean, am I wrong?

742
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 5: No? I think I think that's the appeal of being,

743
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 5: I guess anti institutional being, being a rebel. You know,

744
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 5: these these figures present themselves as these lone wolves that

745
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 5: are speaking to other people that like to think of

746
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 5: themselves as lone wolves, right, they'd like to think of

747
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 5: themselves as that the best way to be a lone

748
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 5: wolf is obviously to follow follow another bigger wolf and

749
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 5: do exactly exactly what they do. Yes, I think that

750
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 5: there's a component of that to it, and maybe men

751
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 5: are a bit more susceptible to that kind of thing.

752
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 5: But I mean maybe another reason too is just you know,

753
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 5: straight up patriarchy, right, I mean, like most politicians are men,

754
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:49,760
Speaker 5: and maybe the reason most gurusm and is the same

755
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 5: same reason.

756
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 4: I think more moderate messages as well, Like there are

757
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 4: divisions and the ad w s spearce right like for example,

758
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,320
Speaker 4: Sam Harris or various other people Claire Layman, the Collette

759
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 4: were critical of the people promoting COVID conspiracies, but people

760
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:13,799
Speaker 4: advocating like we often get accused of this as well.

761
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 4: Like if you are saying that you know, fundamentally, like

762
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 4: the vaccines were very effective and good and like by

763
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 4: and large you would have done well to follow public

764
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 4: health advice, It's not a very sexy message for people.

765
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 4: It's not forbidden knowledge. It's just saying, yeah, you know,

766
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:38,439
Speaker 4: like the the normy kind of take was actually right

767
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 4: in this in this situation, and I think that has

768
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 4: Like there are people who promote that message, but they

769
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 4: tend to be they tend to not attract the same

770
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,439
Speaker 4: level of following, like you know, Stephen Pink or Jonathan Hyde.

771
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 4: Those are people that get in the same kind of

772
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 4: heterodox sphere, but they don't attract the same level of

773
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,839
Speaker 4: devotion as like figures like Ela Musk or you know

774
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 4: somebody or the Weinstein brothers, like willing to say that

775
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 4: the entire institution. They all need to be burnt down,

776
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 4: and you know talk about UFOs.

777
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean it reminds me of a conversation

778
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:17,760
Speaker 2: we have with Chris Baial, the director of the Polarization

779
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,359
Speaker 2: labb At Duke, just talking about how it's just there's

780
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 2: no there's no real incentive to be loud with a

781
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 2: moderate voice. It's not really worth it. Like you're going

782
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 2: to get a lot of hate, You're gonna get yelled

783
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 2: at a lot. I mean, scientists have been getting yelled

784
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 2: at like crazy on Twitter.

785
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 4: I mean, thanks the Musk, thanks. Yeah.

786
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:41,399
Speaker 2: God, the anti science sentiment freaks me out, man. But yeah,

787
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 2: Like some days I wake up and I'm like, I'm

788
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:45,879
Speaker 2: gonna be the moderate voice we need, and then two

789
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 2: hours later I'm like, fuck no, I'm not.

790
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 4: Now there's no reason too.

791
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 1: And it's not easy to swallow for anyone. It's not exciting,

792
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: it's not sexy, it's not no, it's there's no, there's no.

793
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 2: I woke up in the middle of the night last night,

794
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 2: like just ruminating as I do for two full hours

795
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 2: about how I could make it cool to be into nuance,

796
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 2: and so I was like, Okay, I'm gonna make a TikTok.

797
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 2: I'm going to do a song about the importance of

798
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 2: like listening, pausing and thinking more deeply, you know, but

799
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 2: it's just not that sexy. It sucks.

800
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone who's used Twitter knows this. Like

801
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 5: it's always your worst tweets that are the most popular.

802
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, the only.

803
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 5: One Like that's because it has to be inflammatory in

804
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 5: some way, shape or form. It has. There's a I

805
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 5: think it was Baumeister Chris who had the idea of

806
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:43,320
Speaker 5: bad is stronger than good.

807
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

808
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 5: Basically, people respond just psychologically more strongly to averse of

809
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 5: negative simular things that elicit negative emotions than things that

810
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 5: are fine. And you know, this precedes social media by

811
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 5: a long way. You know, our normal mainstream media news

812
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 5: is full of the bad things that happened today. Yeah,

813
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 5: it doesn't. It doesn't include the all the boring stuff

814
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 5: that was totally fine. So it's kind of just how

815
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 5: human attention works and where we focus on these negative things.

816
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 5: And we live in an attention economy and you have

817
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 5: people who emote an awful lot of negative stuff. And

818
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 5: have a look at Jordan Peterson's Twitter feed and it's

819
00:44:29,680 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 5: it's full of just bile, spewing bile, and you know

820
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 5: that's that's attention getting for a reason.

821
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, that video that he posted recently when you came

822
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 2: back on Twitter, where he looks like a literal batman villain.

823
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:44,760
Speaker 2: He's talking like a batman.

824
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 4: We covered some of his videos and it's like he's

825
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 4: even leaned into the delivery of you know, like dramatic

826
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 4: pausas and Stone looks into the camera. He's like he's

827
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 4: become a caricature of himself and that, you know, the

828
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 4: one of the things that struck me is like, if

829
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 4: you you know, I can feel it as well, if

830
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 4: you're telling someone the message that like, you can't actually

831
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 4: become an expert in virology by just reading a couple

832
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 4: of pre prints or you know, listening to like I

833
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 4: listened to the podcast about virologists, and the main thing

834
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 4: it teaches me is I'm not a virologist. I can like,

835
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 4: I cannot follow the and they talk with such a

836
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 4: fluency about the research literature, but that those conversations are

837
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 4: actually very different from what the gurus do when they

838
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 4: talk about it. Because when the gurus talk about it,

839
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 4: it is understandable, and their message is you can know

840
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 4: better than the other people. And I think this might

841
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:55,720
Speaker 4: be ferentiated a little bit unwanted, unwarranted in America's direction,

842
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 4: but that that notion that is prevalent in America that

843
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 4: you you can be anything you want to be in

844
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 4: you know, like individual empowerment. It's a it's a good

845
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 4: message and lots of occasions, but it's also it leads

846
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 4: to people overestimating the capacity and like.

847
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I was like, I'm going to be the

848
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 3: president when I was ten.

849
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 2: Why would I think that when you're ten?

850
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: I mean, but still, come on, if you.

851
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 4: Couldn't, you couldn't be worse.

852
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 2: True, it's actually the easiest job. Like all you got

853
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 2: to do is be really loud and simplistic.

854
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 3: Trump showed us that.

855
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:46,719
Speaker 4: I guess if you if you are like I know

856
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 4: as well, I'm sure you do that. Like if you

857
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 4: tell your audience that, like you guys listening to us,

858
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 4: you know you're getting nuanced. You are the people that

859
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 4: cant you can see that that would be psychologically appealing

860
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 4: to people. And there's kind of just an intuitive or

861
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 4: like an appeal to do that to prease your audience.

862
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 4: And it's like a natural thing to do because you

863
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 4: appreciate the people watching, but there's a fine line, and

864
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 4: like you said, it's a spectrum between promoting powasociality in

865
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 4: an unhealthy way. I'd like there are ways to engage

866
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,880
Speaker 4: in it. They're perfectly fine. You know, people are just

867
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 4: content creators. People like them and that's okay. It does

868
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:31,720
Speaker 4: not have to be exploitative, but I think the incentives

869
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 4: lean towards the bombastic and like exploitative, which is just

870
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,280
Speaker 4: straight depressing. But it's the key.

871
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 2: Is Yeah, that's part of my resistance to TikTok is

872
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:46,319
Speaker 2: that I know the videos that would do really well

873
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,440
Speaker 2: on there, and I don't want to get big for

874
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 2: that reason, if that makes sense.

875
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: What I've noticed from people that are in my life

876
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: who do TikTok, who get really big on it is

877
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: they just start doing stuff that gets a lot of

878
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,720
Speaker 1: negative attention. And if you can withstand the negative attention,

879
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: then you're going to get the positive attention. But there's

880
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: this huge gap where you just have to be like,

881
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:07,280
Speaker 1: everybody's like you suck, I hate you, And that's because

882
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: they're doing stuff that's a little bit like edgy and

883
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: yeah it's awful.

884
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 4: I had a question for you too, because like you,

885
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 4: you both seemed, you know, in the podcast and in

886
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 4: general like upbeat right, But weekend and week A you're

887
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 4: talking with people avoid like relative relatively exploitative traumatic experiences.

888
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 4: And I'm just curious because, like Matt and I also

889
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 4: look at often terrible people and have ways to deal

890
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 4: with it. But how do you avoid like not becoming

891
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:49,440
Speaker 4: extremely cynical whenever you're dealing with the kind of topic

892
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 4: that you are or very cynical.

893
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, yeah, I'm cheerfully.

894
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 2: I just sent a long email being like I am.

895
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,799
Speaker 2: I'm experienced abuse burnout and I need to do some

896
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 2: episodes not about abuse for a while because it is

897
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 2: like destroying my mental health. So that is a real

898
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:09,880
Speaker 2: thing that that we are dealing with. I also think

899
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 2: we are both really good at like making light of

900
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 2: how bad we feel. Yeah, that doesn't mean we don't

901
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 2: all the time.

902
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:20,439
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean we don't feel awful all the time.

903
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:28,320
Speaker 4: I think that's similar to met like both the feeling

904
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 4: awful and not just because of being middle aged funcy

905
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:37,320
Speaker 4: that we I think one of the reasons like people

906
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 4: like our content a bit is that even though we are,

907
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 4: you know, trying to do like a look at rhetorical

908
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 4: techniques and that kind of thing that like it is

909
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 4: funny at times, like the self like Jordan Peterson. I'm

910
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:55,760
Speaker 4: not saying he doesn't do harm in the world and stuff,

911
00:49:55,800 --> 00:50:02,359
Speaker 4: but like he's also kind of funny, and I think

912
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,240
Speaker 4: you have to be a lied to do that because

913
00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:08,399
Speaker 4: otherwise it is just like it's just depressing how much

914
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 4: money people are making and all that kind of thing.

915
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 2: So yeah, oh yeah, I fall into the dark hole

916
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:17,839
Speaker 2: a lot. But part of what I like about this

917
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 2: and the fact that we have that we're not just

918
00:50:20,320 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 2: limited to cults, is that we can explore, like we

919
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 2: can kind of do deep dives into trying to understand

920
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 2: why it happens and try to make a difference in

921
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 2: the small way that we can, and so that, you know,

922
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 2: feels like it's constructive at least. Yeah, absolutely So. In

923
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 2: your research or just doing your podcast, have you guys

924
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 2: noticed any common threads among people who are drawn to gurus.

925
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 5: Ah, that's a good question. We've been focusing on the

926
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:50,319
Speaker 5: gurus rather than their audiences. I guess it's always been

927
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 5: my assumption that the audience has probably had the same

928
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 5: kind of characteristics as like I say, people who are

929
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 5: attracted to conspiracy theory is and that kind of thing.

930
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 5: So the stuff that we know about that now you've

931
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:08,440
Speaker 5: been talking to your guests about conspiracy theories recently, so

932
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 5: stuff like like feeling feeling like you're underappreciated, feeling like

933
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:16,160
Speaker 5: you haven't you know, you don't have the opportunities and

934
00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 5: someone you have that have been given to you to

935
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 5: have that sort of feeling of resentment, but you know,

936
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 5: having a high opinion of yourself and feeling that it's

937
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 5: not being recognized. And I guess the gurus one of

938
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,840
Speaker 5: the things, as Chris said, is that they flatter the

939
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 5: egos of the of their audience really at every extent.

940
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 2: So you're super logical, You're like the most logical man.

941
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, You're not ideological. You just it's just truth

942
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 5: and logic and facts. So that's that's a risk factor

943
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 5: for a known psychological attractor for conspiracy theories because it's

944
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 5: one thing that about them is that it makes you

945
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 5: feel good that you're one of the people that have

946
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 5: a have a clear you know, one of the people

947
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 5: you have a clear view of the world. Can you

948
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:06,319
Speaker 5: think of anything else there?

949
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:10,319
Speaker 4: Chris Well, one thing is that, Like, on a positive note,

950
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 4: I think a lot of the people that are drawn

951
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 4: to that have a genuine interest in you know, like

952
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 4: science or alternative like journalism or that kind of thing, right, Like,

953
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 4: they often are inquisitive people, but they they kind of

954
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 4: get like what I sometimes refer to it as like

955
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:37,319
Speaker 4: the intellectual junk food, right, because there is all of

956
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 4: these avenues for you to consume actual information now freely online.

957
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 4: Like there's really good university level courses that you can

958
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:49,920
Speaker 4: do for free on all these platforms. So you can

959
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:52,879
Speaker 4: just watch YouTube tutorials. Like when I when I want

960
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 4: to understand some statistical technique, I usually watch a YouTube

961
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 4: tutorial they understand and like. But those things are inherently

962
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 4: less satisfying and less sexy. They're just like, if you

963
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 4: work at this for a couple of months, you will

964
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 4: get a better understanding of statistics.

965
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 2: The worrying, right.

966
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 4: Yeah.

967
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I think sorry to drop, but I think

968
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:18,920
Speaker 5: that's a really important point that And there's a parallel

969
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:22,399
Speaker 5: to the cults and the spiritual type gurus there as well,

970
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 5: which is that often people are attracted to them for

971
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 5: the best of reasons.

972
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 2: Yep.

973
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 5: Chris talked about doing meditation. A lot of people are

974
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 5: attracted to you know, Buddhism or something like that for

975
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 5: very wholesome, healthy reasons. They might be psychologically more open,

976
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:42,839
Speaker 5: be high on openness to experience one of the big

977
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 5: five personality dimensions. They kind of that sort of seeker mindset,

978
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:54,280
Speaker 5: you know, looking for stimulating information, and it's been instructive. Actually,

979
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 5: I was reminded of that. We've spoken to a bunch

980
00:53:57,080 --> 00:54:00,279
Speaker 5: of people through on social media, Hay Kris, who were

981
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:07,200
Speaker 5: former fans of various yeah, you know, and and they

982
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,719
Speaker 5: are people who, yeah, I think you can describe them

983
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:13,760
Speaker 5: as they were originally attracted to them because they wanted

984
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 5: something a bit deeper, a bit more interesting than just

985
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 5: like a superficial kind of article or you know, just

986
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 5: saying the same kind of you know, whatever institutionally approved,

987
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 5: politically correct kind of take. They weren't, they weren't necessarily

988
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 5: right wing or left wing. They just wanted they wanted

989
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 5: some some more more deeper, more critical sort of dives.

990
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:39,920
Speaker 5: And they sometimes would find some good stuff, refreshing stuff,

991
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 5: I suppose, with these alternative figures. But then hopefully they

992
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:48,320
Speaker 5: they eventually noticed that there's some downsides there.

993
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 4: Too, and being disgruntled with like to some extent, with

994
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 4: like experiences maybe you know, the bad side of academia

995
00:54:56,560 --> 00:54:59,120
Speaker 4: or like finance or that kind of thing, Like they're

996
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 4: legitimate thing to be upset about with pharmaceutical companies and

997
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 4: with the way that academia is run if you're involved

998
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 4: with it, Like acadects could just talk all day about

999
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 4: their complaints about academia. But so it's not that when

1000
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 4: people are using criticisms that there's no there there there is,

1001
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 4: But the unfortunate thing is like a lot of the

1002
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:24,439
Speaker 4: stuff which would actually, you know, which would be productively

1003
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 4: helpful and potentially solve issues, they're they're not what's being

1004
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:34,680
Speaker 4: offered by those figures. And the flip side of the

1005
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 4: people who get out of those communities and become like

1006
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:43,439
Speaker 4: maybe critical or you know, more critical, is that we've

1007
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 4: also noticed this tendency amongst audiences for like minor gurus

1008
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:55,440
Speaker 4: to spin off from the major gurus, Like they become

1009
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 4: very like passionate defenders of them online and then they

1010
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:05,240
Speaker 4: get their own small following, and then they they also

1011
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:08,279
Speaker 4: the kind of bigger guru will shut them out or

1012
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:12,120
Speaker 4: you know, encourage them, and then over time they can

1013
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 4: become like almost as big or like at least kind

1014
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:19,840
Speaker 4: of approaching at the same levels as those figures. So

1015
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 4: it's like they're like gremlins, you know, you put water

1016
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:28,280
Speaker 4: on them and they just they're spawning more girls.

1017
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 2: Yes, So what I'm hearing is that we need more

1018
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:32,839
Speaker 2: hot scientists.

1019
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 6: Yes, and that's that's the unfortunate thing.

1020
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 2: And we need to be a class, like a required

1021
00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 2: class that you take when you're getting your PhD that

1022
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:49,840
Speaker 2: is public speaking and how to be charismatic on the internet.

1023
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 1: That's what I heard too. Yeah, I think that's the

1024
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:53,360
Speaker 1: those are the facts of this interview.

1025
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:54,839
Speaker 4: That's that's our recommendation.

1026
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:58,920
Speaker 6: More hot scientists, scientic courage.

1027
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 4: My classes university.

1028
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 3: Get Butler style the scientists.

1029
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:08,040
Speaker 5: But it's very true, like I mean, part of the

1030
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:11,520
Speaker 5: problem for all of this, and the blame lies with academia, right,

1031
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 5: because we've been really bad. None of the metrics that

1032
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 5: academics get rewarded for are aligned with public understanding of

1033
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:26,200
Speaker 5: science and public engagement. It's it's starting to change. I

1034
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 5: think my university, Thanksual actually does has sort of tried

1035
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:32,600
Speaker 5: to incorporate that a little bit, but it's really not

1036
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:37,920
Speaker 5: rewarded in academia, and as a result, there is this big,

1037
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 5: wide open space that you have science journalists you know who,

1038
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:46,760
Speaker 5: but their track record isn't so great, like we've seen,

1039
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:52,080
Speaker 5: for instance on the lablique issue with with with COVID,

1040
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:56,520
Speaker 5: that if you were reading the popular science or journal

1041
00:57:56,640 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 5: journalism on that topic, you would think that the sort

1042
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 5: of narrative of evidence was flip flopping between oh now

1043
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:07,960
Speaker 5: it's now we've discovered it was a lablig Oh no,

1044
00:58:08,040 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 5: it's definitely zoonotic, backwards and forwards. And that's of course

1045
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 5: journalists looking for a good story when actually the evidence

1046
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 5: has been it started off relatively ambiguous, I suppose, and

1047
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:24,120
Speaker 5: has just been boringly progressively coming down more and more

1048
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 5: on the side of a natural origin there has, so,

1049
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:31,320
Speaker 5: you know, unfortunately, again the incentives even just for regular

1050
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 5: journalists working for the Washington Post or some other outlet.

1051
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:39,240
Speaker 5: And I'm not that healthy either, So yeah, that's a

1052
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:40,200
Speaker 5: positive note, Mak.

1053
00:58:42,920 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 1: You guys said it well, with attention currency, that's the problem,

1054
00:58:46,760 --> 00:58:47,880
Speaker 1: huh yeah.

1055
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. And then we talked very recently with coffee Zella,

1056
00:58:53,600 --> 00:58:58,439
Speaker 4: the YouTuber who is doing like kind of deep daves

1057
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 4: and exposes on like Phane, actual gurus and crypto currency

1058
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 4: people and that, and it just really struck home to

1059
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 4: me that like, you know, you guys are are looking

1060
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:14,680
Speaker 4: at like actual, actual cults and like exploitative guru figures.

1061
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:19,240
Speaker 4: We are looking at this particular like online secular guru

1062
00:59:19,320 --> 00:59:22,200
Speaker 4: spiece and the coffee cilla guy is dealing with like

1063
00:59:22,280 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 4: crypto gurus and and like online and there's just so

1064
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 4: many avenues and like niches that that you know, a

1065
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:35,280
Speaker 4: lot of the techniques kind of overlap. But it just

1066
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:39,600
Speaker 4: makes you realize, like if you want to spend your

1067
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:44,320
Speaker 4: time looking at like twitch streamers and the dynamics there,

1068
00:59:44,680 --> 00:59:48,520
Speaker 4: it's it's it would be like a whole career right

1069
00:59:48,560 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 4: to like a handle around it. So there's like it's

1070
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:56,560
Speaker 4: kind of depressing. The online egos system just creates all

1071
00:59:56,600 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 4: these different areas for guru types the flourish, and that

1072
01:00:02,520 --> 01:00:05,280
Speaker 4: means that we will constantly have like people that we

1073
01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:05,800
Speaker 4: can cover.

1074
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for the content.

1075
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean it kind of always comes back

1076
01:00:14,640 --> 01:00:16,280
Speaker 2: to the same thing for me, which is that like

1077
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 2: if people felt secure in their life, if they felt

1078
01:00:19,880 --> 01:00:21,680
Speaker 2: like they had a community that they could turn to,

1079
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be as necessary, they wouldn't feel so much

1080
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:27,120
Speaker 2: of a void, and so it just feels it. But

1081
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:29,280
Speaker 2: then you know that can also feel like, well, how

1082
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 2: the fuck to be like on a societal scale make

1083
01:00:32,200 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 2: people feel more comfortable in their lives that they don't

1084
01:00:35,600 --> 01:00:37,560
Speaker 2: need this, you know. So I don't know what the

1085
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:38,680
Speaker 2: answer is you guys.

1086
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 3: No, I'll reach out to your friends.

1087
01:00:43,280 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 2: That's my touch grass, touch grass.

1088
01:00:48,040 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Can I ask you guys if you guys think

1089
01:00:50,440 --> 01:00:51,920
Speaker 3: Alex Jones is a guru?

1090
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:56,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, he's a guru. Yeah, he's not in the

1091
01:00:56,560 --> 01:00:59,400
Speaker 5: center of our focus because he's just he's so obviously

1092
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:04,200
Speaker 5: conspiracy faries. We're in conspiracy theorists, We're we're more interested

1093
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:06,919
Speaker 5: in those in those edu cases, I suppose, but yeah,

1094
01:01:06,960 --> 01:01:07,640
Speaker 5: sure would be.

1095
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: Yes.

1096
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,160
Speaker 4: There's a there's a good podcast, you probably know, Knowledge

1097
01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:15,440
Speaker 4: Fight that like analyzes Alex jones content. It releases an

1098
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:20,560
Speaker 4: episode three times a week because so much and they

1099
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:23,000
Speaker 4: do a deep dive. But one thing about that that

1100
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 4: it makes very clear is like Alex Jones' is you know,

1101
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:31,640
Speaker 4: kind of very dramatic, bombastic figure, but actually he's like

1102
01:01:32,240 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 4: he's presented a little bit, you know, by Joe Rogan

1103
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,840
Speaker 4: and stuff. As like, oh this cookie conspiracy fearist through

1104
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:40,960
Speaker 4: like believes in fourth dimensional aliens and all this. But

1105
01:01:41,080 --> 01:01:43,960
Speaker 4: like a lot of what he does is just hard

1106
01:01:44,080 --> 01:01:51,080
Speaker 4: right partisan, anti immigrant, misogynistic content. And it's so it

1107
01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:56,240
Speaker 4: isn't like it's not a completely unknown, you know, like

1108
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:59,560
Speaker 4: little area of conspiracism on its own. It's like it's

1109
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 4: right when partisanship, and that's just that that will obviously

1110
01:02:04,760 --> 01:02:07,280
Speaker 4: appeal because right.

1111
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:09,640
Speaker 5: Wing, extreme right wing partisanship.

1112
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Milaysia stuff.

1113
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:18,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, are there any final things you would like

1114
01:02:18,760 --> 01:02:20,480
Speaker 2: to say about Gurus.

1115
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 4: Mate? Anyone charismatic or it seems interesting, just avoid.

1116
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 2: Turn them off?

1117
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:40,920
Speaker 6: Yeah, borrowing people, that's that's the people that you focus

1118
01:02:40,960 --> 01:02:41,920
Speaker 6: on that don't speak.

1119
01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:43,400
Speaker 4: Well, that's that's what you are.

1120
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 2: Perfect Decoding the Gurus is your podcast and where can

1121
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:48,480
Speaker 2: people find you on social media?

1122
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 4: We're on Twitter still for night see You Underscore Kavna

1123
01:02:55,520 --> 01:02:58,880
Speaker 4: and and Matt is our for Sea Dan after the

1124
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 4: hit Checkers to the Galaxy character and then our podcast

1125
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 4: is Guru's Poets, but we're easy to find just like googling.

1126
01:03:06,280 --> 01:03:06,640
Speaker 3: Perfect.

1127
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 2: Great, Thank you guys, so much, Thank you, this is awesome.

1128
01:03:10,080 --> 01:03:11,640
Speaker 4: Thanks for inviting us Okay.

1129
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 2: So, Megan, now that we've had that discussion, i'd be

1130
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 2: curious to know, have you ever followed someone who might

1131
01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:21,600
Speaker 2: fall under the guru category? Uh?

1132
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:23,120
Speaker 3: Sure, and no.

1133
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,080
Speaker 1: You know, like, I'm obsessed with Deepak Chopra at cart

1134
01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 1: Toole all those people, but I don't think that they're

1135
01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:34,160
Speaker 1: necessarily across the board gurus, like I think that they're

1136
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:35,640
Speaker 1: also cool dudes.

1137
01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:38,960
Speaker 3: But maybe that's me being under a guru spell.

1138
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,240
Speaker 2: I feel like there might be some guru overlap there,

1139
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:45,880
Speaker 2: but as long as you're not yeah, I'm meeting them

1140
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:46,720
Speaker 2: as your guru.

1141
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 1: No, I'm not like going to their expensive conferences or

1142
01:03:50,600 --> 01:03:53,479
Speaker 1: doing any of that stuff. But I'm obsessed with them

1143
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:56,920
Speaker 1: and mostly at Kart, Like, let's be real, he's the

1144
01:03:56,960 --> 01:04:00,280
Speaker 1: closest thing I have to Uh yeah.

1145
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:04,840
Speaker 2: Oh interesting. I feel like there's more I could say

1146
01:04:04,880 --> 01:04:06,800
Speaker 2: on that, but I don't know enough to say it.

1147
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:13,440
Speaker 3: So that's it's so crazy instinct. I love it. What

1148
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 3: about you? Do you have any gurus?

1149
01:04:15,360 --> 01:04:17,680
Speaker 2: I think my gurus in my life have been like

1150
01:04:17,800 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 2: very many gurus where I'm just like, oh, this person

1151
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:24,120
Speaker 2: has really interesting ideas. I like this, one of them

1152
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:28,720
Speaker 2: probably being Tara Brock. Uh mindfulness teacher or whatever. But

1153
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:31,439
Speaker 2: she's she incorporates psychology. She's like, she has a degree

1154
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:34,160
Speaker 2: in psychology. So it's like not too new agy, which

1155
01:04:34,200 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 2: I really like. And then yeah, honestly, her book Radical

1156
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 2: Acceptance was like game changing for me because it was

1157
01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:42,440
Speaker 2: the first time I ever realized that I don't have

1158
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:46,600
Speaker 2: to identify with my thoughts. Who else I mean, well,

1159
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:51,680
Speaker 2: clearly now Albert Kemu, obviously I knew guru. Yeah, I

1160
01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:55,000
Speaker 2: don't know no one, no one in any major way,

1161
01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 2: though I would say, just like various thinkers or authors

1162
01:04:58,280 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 2: in my journey.

1163
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:02,720
Speaker 3: Would you consider your original cult leader a guru?

1164
01:05:03,200 --> 01:05:07,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, but not you know, in

1165
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:10,520
Speaker 2: like the religious way, not in like yeah, he wasn't

1166
01:05:10,520 --> 01:05:13,600
Speaker 2: purporting to like help us, help anyone, like be more

1167
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:17,240
Speaker 2: enlightened or productive so much as just like spring about

1168
01:05:17,360 --> 01:05:20,400
Speaker 2: Jesus's second coming and make sure you were.

1169
01:05:20,280 --> 01:05:22,960
Speaker 3: Saved right right right?

1170
01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:25,680
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like gurus and this is just

1171
01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:27,800
Speaker 1: me making sit up, but are more like here's how

1172
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:30,600
Speaker 1: to have a happier existence, and maybe more how we

1173
01:05:30,640 --> 01:05:32,720
Speaker 1: grew up was just like here's how to avoid making

1174
01:05:32,840 --> 01:05:33,520
Speaker 1: Jesus mad.

1175
01:05:33,680 --> 01:05:34,120
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1176
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I feel like mine was more like Harry

1177
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:39,560
Speaker 2: Potter or something where it's like you were chosen to

1178
01:05:39,720 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 2: do this, you know, life, this world saving task or whatever.

1179
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 2: Right right, it's like, oh my god, I'm fucking Luke Skywalker.

1180
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:51,480
Speaker 2: I'm like the one chosen my mom and I or whatever.

1181
01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:54,720
Speaker 2: So that does feel like a slightly different thing. I

1182
01:05:54,720 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 2: feel like there's gurus and then there's prophets.

1183
01:05:57,000 --> 01:05:59,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we can It's a fun episode. Maybe we

1184
01:05:59,320 --> 01:06:02,200
Speaker 1: can do that someday. Yeah, all right, all right, good

1185
01:06:02,640 --> 01:06:04,840
Speaker 1: you guys, Thank you so much for joining us here

1186
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:05,520
Speaker 1: another week.

1187
01:06:05,600 --> 01:06:07,800
Speaker 3: We can't wait to see you again next time.

1188
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:11,160
Speaker 1: And this always remember to follow your gut, watch out

1189
01:06:11,160 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: for red.

1190
01:06:11,560 --> 01:06:19,440
Speaker 3: Flags, and never ever trust me. Bye bye.

1191
01:06:21,200 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 2: Trust Me is produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp, and

1192
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:25,360
Speaker 2: Steve Delemator.

1193
01:06:24,920 --> 01:06:26,920
Speaker 3: With special thanks to Stacy Para and.

1194
01:06:26,880 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 2: Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1195
01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:32,280
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,

1196
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 1: Twitter at trust Me Cult Pod, or on TikTok at

1197
01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 1: trust Me Cult Podcast.

1198
01:06:37,760 --> 01:06:41,040
Speaker 2: I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.

1199
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:44,480
Speaker 1: And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham

1200
01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: Hits on Twitter.

1201
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:48,080
Speaker 2: Remember to rate and review and spread the word