Decoding The Gurus

Michael Shellenberger: Conspiratorial Propaganda

Added 2025-04-18 09:02:32 +0000 UTC

In this episode, Matt and Chris pour themselves a stiff drink and slip into the fever‑dream crossover of Jordan Peterson and Michael Shellenberger, a conversation that opens with the claim that Western Europe is now the single greatest threat to free speech; yes, croissants and GDPR apparently out‑authoritarian China and Russia. From there, they enjoy learning how “America Is Back!” thanks to God-Emperor Trump and his manifestation of the Egyptian God of honest speech- Elon Musk.

Our hosts marvel as Shellenberger insists USAID is a rogue soft‑power leviathan that somehow staged January 6th, sabotaged the 2020 election, and deserves to be nuked from orbit, though, full disclosure, he can’t quite prove any of that YET. Peterson counters with his trademark poetic mythicism and dinner‑party anthropology, explaining that Hungary is a model democracy, the US nation is beset by parasites, and that this is all inevitably tied into people not paying enough attention to Jesus.

Along the way, we learn about Manly Men, Musk’s “move fast and break government” ethos, and the revelation that free speech is not a nice‑to‑have but a must‑have—unless you are a lawyer, journalist, or student on the wrong side of the Trump administration. We also get to observe how Peterson and Shellenberger manage to simultaneously present themselves as freethinking rebel intellectuals while also serving as propagandists justifying every single action taken by Trump and Musk.

So strap in for an episode of depressingly familiar and dystopic themes from two conspiratorial eejits.

Sources
- Peterson, J. & Shellenberger, M. “Trump, Musk, Kennedy: The Dawn of Transparency,” The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, Ep. 526.
- Shellenberger's Substack