Gurometer: Destiny
Added 2024-04-25 00:32:01 +0000 UTCThe second time's the charm!
We put Destiny through the Gurometer and used the opportunity to make some overdue recalibrations. The gurometer is an ever-evolving high-precision instrument, so some maintenance is required from time to time. Agree with us, disagree, laugh, cry, scream, do what you must... and produce your own score if you feel like it!
Comments
I think Chris and Matt’s own bias crept in a lot in making so much of that distinction here in a way they haven’t done in the case of others.
HFarmer
2024-06-14 08:49:07 +0000 UTCHow many of Hasan’s close follower has he slept with. Because that to me would be a pretty strong indicator for cult like behaviour and seems like destiny should score very high on it.
HFarmer
2024-06-13 18:05:52 +0000 UTCGalaxy-brainedness - 2.5 He does speak on just about every topic, but he lacks the true galaxy brain ideas that elevate someone from mere commentator to guru. Cultishness - 2 Low level parasocial fandom Anti-establishment - 4 Not interested in revolution. Focuses on unionisation, protests, activism etc. So whilst he is against the established political orthodoxy, he advocates for things that are within established norms of opposition (associates with AOC a member of the house of representatives). His apologia for China and Russia gets him a bump up. Greivance-mongering - 3.5 Petty internet feuds + standard socialist discontent with excesses of capitalism. Self-aggrandisement - 2 Leftist chad Cassandra complex - 2 "WW3 is about to kick off" was clickbait. He talks about all sorts of things so I'm sure he sometimes makes predictions. Revolutionary theories - 1 Would have been revolutionary 100 years ago. Psuedo-profound bullshit - 1 Basic Conspiracy-mongering - 2 Can be too quick to jump at pro-(whatever the leftist side is) explanations, like with the Gaza conflict. Doesn't pursue conspiracies as far as I can tell. Excessive profiteering - 2 He's rich, the same way actors and sports people get paid a lot more than they should for what they do. But he's not taking advantage of people or society from what I can tell. And he pays taxes like a good socialist!
David Noble
2024-05-01 14:29:14 +0000 UTCWhat would your 10 scores be?
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-05-01 06:48:28 +0000 UTCNevermind I listened through it all! Whilst I'm not fond of Hasan, I am a leftist, and I would argue that some of the high scores he got were due to DtGs more centrist bias. I think that if Hasan were not a socialist and therefore less affected by some of DtGs misconceptions about socialism then he would have got scores more close to Destiny's. I've made notes on the scores that I disagree with. Cultishness - 4.5 Should be the same as Destiny, but got a higher score. I think by the time Chris had gone through Destiny's material he had a better understanding of the toxic/trollish environment they are in and that getting angry at the chat is fairly common and not a cultish thing. Both decoding episodes have the streamers berating someone in their chat at length. Anti-establishment - 5 Should be moderately high due to socialist political ideology but to characterise his politics as: "It's entirely corrupt, it's entirely set out to undermine everything that's good and pure in the world" is hyperbole. Don't believe Hasan says that kind of thing in any of the clips. Bit of a caricature of socialist attitudes from Matt. Greivance-mongering - 4.5 Again, same as Destiny but gets a higher score. Should be a bit higher for Hasan for the political viewpoint, but the interpersonal feuds and involving the audience in said feuds is just the same for both, perhaps less so for Hasan because he is less of a sociopath than Destiny and doesn't mix with the same weird people. Self-aggrandisement - 4.5 My impression of Hasan has always been one where he doesn't take himself too seriously as a thinker. He just doesn't compare to the likes of Gad Saad inventing whole new fields of evolutionary biology and the Weinstein bros theories. I feel DtGs personal distaste for Hasan is skewing this a bit. I do think he is fairly narcissistic in a 'Leftist Chad' sort of way. It's more on the level of being cool and popular rather than claiming to be very clever and capable. I suspect Destiny's self-description as not a remarkably intelligent person is an example of his outwards facing persona that he talks about and maybe not what he really thinks of himself. "Pseudo-profound bullshit" side note: The assessment of him as "too basic" for pseudo-profundity is accurate in my opinion, but it also undermines the high self-aggrandisement score. On conspiracy-mongering, "Communists and fascists aren't any different from flat-earthers" is definitely a take. "Excessive profiteering" - 3.5 I struggle to find justification for the score. I think you would have to find examples of him being exploitative with his viewership rather than going off vibes, but you say as much yourselves. Many socialists are quite happy about people being entrepreneurial and making lots of money. Taxes are the way by which the government redistributes money and wealthier people should pay more taxes. If Hasan were a landlord or trying to avoid paying taxes then you could say he is being a hypocrite. Well that's a way to spend an hour I guess.
David Noble
2024-04-30 23:41:59 +0000 UTCDo you happen to have a spreadsheet available to see for the scores?
David Noble
2024-04-30 20:41:35 +0000 UTCOk now I need to know where he DID score highly. Listening to his gurometer now.
David Noble
2024-04-30 20:37:34 +0000 UTCDestiny profiteering: 2 & 2 Hasan profiteering: 3.5 & 2 I think Hasan’s level of profiteering is hypocritical with his politics and hence why he seeks to downplay his income/investments, etc. but he’s certainly not JBP levels.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-30 01:37:35 +0000 UTCOh my bad, I thought I heard you talking about Hasan's moral grandstanding, I'll have to give his gurometer a listen to see where you marked him highly. I think you mentioned his profiteering, which you found hypocritical due to his apparent political ideology, did you give him a high score there? I have definitely seen him say he loves the consumerism side of capitalism and really socialism doesn't necessarily mean you can't have wealthy people.
David Noble
2024-04-30 01:32:21 +0000 UTCFor reference, Destiny got 3 and 2 for Galaxy Brainedness- so I don’t think that was a big factor in the difference.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-30 01:21:00 +0000 UTCGalaxy Brain scores for Hasan were 3.5 and 2. There was no score for moral grandstanding as it wasn’t a feature until the most recent gurometer?
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-30 01:18:37 +0000 UTCI think I agree with the Destiny score, he's not much of a Guru. Hearing your Hasan Piker score however, 66% is pretty nuts. I'd put him on par with Destiny, I think you imagined a lot of the moral grandstanding and galaxy-brainedness due to your dislike of him and some incorrect presumptions about his political ideology.
David Noble
2024-04-30 01:13:25 +0000 UTCThe only Dr. K!
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-27 20:44:13 +0000 UTCI really liked hearing your guys's perspectives on Destiny and I thought your judgments were pretty fair (I say this as a fan of his)*. I wish you guys the best! *could be my cultish biases though so... take this with a grain of salt ;)
A Nyelvészet A Legjobb
2024-04-27 20:09:09 +0000 UTCI thought that it was a pretty interesting conversation in which neither looked good or bad. It was just fun to watch
A Nyelvészet A Legjobb
2024-04-27 20:06:29 +0000 UTCJust want to throw in my two dollars a month on the whole pile of streamers being a bit like strippers. Shake it, baby!
Exai
2024-04-26 20:36:15 +0000 UTCDestiny's audience demographic is around early-mid twenties for the info, there's not that many teenagers.
PaperMache7
2024-04-26 16:30:39 +0000 UTCFavourite part was when you almost called him Graham hungcock
i'm dissLexick
2024-04-26 13:08:15 +0000 UTCI think I see where the disconnect is. Even if I wasn't confident that he was being sincere, I don't think you should ever allow it to be framed as potentially unserious, even in passing. If he insists he's sincere and he keeps doubling down on a view that's a net negative to society to a huge audience, he loses that right. Otherwise, what will end up happening is that you will debate him seriously, but he will have a free 'get out of jail' card whenever you start sounding a bit more convincing. He will just have to make a joke over-exaggerating his view, and poof - you're disarmed. This is what happens in his conversations. Funnily enough, this is the exact same scenario Destiny had when he was having his cordial conversations with Nick Fuentes. He was unwilling to label Fuentes as a Nazi despite countless Nazi statements by Nick because there was a chance he was just being edgy. This relationship helped Fuentes become somewhat normalized and springboarded him to other podcasts like No Jumper.
Tomek Krzesiński
2024-04-26 10:20:39 +0000 UTCYeah but TBH I’m not really a huge fan of contrived hypotheticals because it often leads to people performing and/or highly intellectualising on positions that may/may not be relevant to their actual behaviour. I do think responses Destiny has offered over time speak to a lack of empathy but as above I think it’s hard to completely disentangle that from his enjoyment of provoking and arguing.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-25 23:44:34 +0000 UTCCovered in next supplemental material
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-25 23:28:45 +0000 UTCWell, you're in the privileged position where you will be able to interrogate him about it. :) You can ask him to be as serious as possible, no memes, no edge-lording - if you knew for certain that you wouldn't get caught (via a magical button or a Death Note), would you have killed the kid? I'm surprised that most people are under the illusion that the answer will be anything but a resounding yes. I think the real interesting question that you can pose to him is whether he would place a completely random person in the Death Note for a million dollars if he was poor and why. That's still a question I'd bet a small amount that he doesn't say outright no to. He got a gun permit. Studied street routes. He has casually stated he feels no empathy for the pain of others countless times (e.g. in debates on veganism, ethics, etc.). More than a decade later, at 35, he’s still fiercely reiterating that it would be right to kill the kid and his dad, and the only thing stopping him were the legal consequences. It's a take he knows is optically horrible given that he's now famous and has a lot to lose, but, to his credit, he is honest to a fault. At some point, you have to take people at their word.
Tomek Krzesiński
2024-04-25 23:10:15 +0000 UTCWow what a POS Destiny is! Hope Matt and Chris spend some time debating this.
SHOUNAK SARKAR
2024-04-25 22:47:28 +0000 UTCThat is there, don’t listen to Matt.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-25 21:29:07 +0000 UTCYeah Tomek, it is interesting. I think Destiny’s younger fans are very impressionable. I wanna know the age of the guy responding to me because it sounds like they don’t have much life experience. As far as Destiny’s murder plans… the issue is always its hard to distinguish what is really sincere and what is edgy effect.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-25 21:28:39 +0000 UTCChris, you’re prof. K in my heart
aneladgam_varelse
2024-04-25 19:57:28 +0000 UTCThat is very disturbing.
Linda Sears
2024-04-25 19:24:12 +0000 UTChttps://youtu.be/fag6ojNzUG0 15:54 Tom: Do you care if I experience pain? Destiny: No. Suffering is not an experience that I value. Tom: So you don't care if you suffer? Destiny: I do, if I suffer, yeah. I'm sorry, suffering on it's own is not [something I care about], but if it's something that harms my preferences or experiences I would care about. 19:20 Destiny: I'm on my fucking deathbed and I can push a button that ends all of humanity, but it extends my existence for 5 or 10 minutes. Why would I ever not push the button? 44:30 Destiny: Characters I would identify more with would be people like Walter White from Breaking Bad. I like that character.
Tomek Krzesiński
2024-04-25 17:56:51 +0000 UTCWhen you guys ask him about wanting to get away with murder, It may be relevant to check out his Alex O'Connor interview about ethics. It was the only thing I saw of him before this and I'll do him a favour of assuming it's his worst performance, but I felt pretty dismissive of him after it lol. I don't think its straw-manning to say he essentially put forward a kind of moral nihilism that Alex pretty easily pointed out the thoughtlessness of.
Cursive Sheet Music
2024-04-25 17:23:29 +0000 UTCI noticed, Chris, Destiny's fans are fiercely arguing with you in favor of murdering the kid and his dad. I think if you spend time debating that topic with various people from the DGG community you might end up bumping up the Cultishness rating a bit. It's not a minority as well. 2 reddit polls showed the support for the murder is 30-40% among fans. Some of it might be trolling, but I'm guessing most of it is genuine. Statistically, given how huge the fanbase is, quite a few of those people will lose their jobs unfairly at some point. Destiny admitted he got a permit for a gun, had the streets mapped out and it was 'scary' how close he was to actually doing it.
Tomek Krzesiński
2024-04-25 15:46:29 +0000 UTCLoved the banter and back & forth between you two Chris and Matt about the different aspects of the gurometer. On the grievance mongering, I’m firmly in Chris’ camp here. Gurus / pundits who spend half their time bringing up old feuds against other people, their grievances, constantly accusing others of bad faith & intellectual dishonesty (hello Sam Harris) are instant turnoffs for me. They do deserve a higher rating because of that. Matt’s definition is too politically valenced. If you spend half / most your time whining about grievances (regardless of political affiliation), you are a grievance monger period. There is a distinction here btw. You do have a right to bring up legitimate grievances provided you have been genuinely misrepresented or lied about. That’s different. But if that becomes your go to thing for every criticism or disagreement, you are a grievance monger.
SHOUNAK SARKAR
2024-04-25 15:30:17 +0000 UTCDefinitely feels like the gurometer might need some refinement to include the polymathic tendencies, because I think covering every sort of topic is often pretty bad, like Sam Harris gets into a lot of shit for talking about everything without doing due diligence, same with Rogan, it's definitely a guruesqe feature, even if destiny does it better than most.
Anonymous ethicist, not a serial killer at all, just asking questions.
2024-04-25 15:16:27 +0000 UTCNeat nod to Graham Hancock there, are you planning on covering him at some point?
Reinert
2024-04-25 14:09:17 +0000 UTC>he has merch lies /s
teixeira
2024-04-25 12:49:59 +0000 UTCOk, if you decode Derek, let's pleeeaaase throw in the Liver King for good measure. That'll finally be a candidate for which I'll agree on a 10 for profiteering 😁 Those fitfluencers are definitely an interesting bunch. Their followers are often quite cultish.
Chomagerider
2024-04-25 12:19:44 +0000 UTC@Stan that also applies to Destiny though
Anna J
2024-04-25 10:24:47 +0000 UTCNo mention that Destiny has been know to weaponise his community to brigade others?
TheKraken
2024-04-25 08:24:30 +0000 UTCThat was so dumbfounding I thought Dr K would explode half way through. Alas, it was just my laughter.
Sam Mountjoy
2024-04-25 07:50:17 +0000 UTCI've not listened yet, so I am in an ideal position to comment: a consistent trait of a personality or behavioural tendency that has 'overly' (as in, causes conflict and potentially inhibits daily functioning) narcissistic traits is a refusal to 'code switch'. With Destiny his refusal to 'code switch' doesn't seem to be an autistic/aspergic 'blindness' to the responses of others, nor a schizotypal style divergence in priorities. He presents it as a point of principle, under the rubric of 'being authentic', but the level of aggressiveness associated with it, and as it clearly causes both him and others discomfort and even distress, it might be classed as a dysfunctional narcissistic trait. [Edit: he even calls this out with mock assertions that he does 'code switch', as with his 'do you know how hard it is for me to talk to you people on the same level' rant. Glorifying one's flaws is also a narcissistic trait: 'oh I have a terrible temper', etc. Obviously I'm not saying he has NPD, he has just displayed some behaviours in the content DtG covered, and they might be one time things and off comments. I've said worse trying to unscrew jar lids.]
Ymirsdreams
2024-04-25 07:43:24 +0000 UTCOh god yes, Athene would explode the Gurometer as a twitch streamer, I don't think he's all that relevant anymore but 5-10 years ago definitely. He did a "therapy" session with Dr. K 4 years ago which probably has the potential to rot Chris's brain the same way the Sense makers did. Here's the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00GYQONkvio
Mutated_Cuhnt
2024-04-25 07:41:01 +0000 UTCOne of destiny's best debate rounds was with a guy called Atheen. Atheen claimed to have unified quantum mechanics and Einsteinian physics while using extremely guru language. You guys would probably score this man sooo high on the gurometer.
Sam Mountjoy
2024-04-25 07:22:40 +0000 UTCYa the streamers are actually a little bit different to secular gurus so it makes sense they don't exactly fit and light things up. There are lots of ways to do parasocial manipulation, being a secular guru is just one particular way.
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-25 06:08:50 +0000 UTCHasan comes off as a narcissist. He's emotionally invested in having followers and manipulating/abusing them. Isn't that classic cult leader dynamics?
Stan
2024-04-25 05:37:18 +0000 UTCI think Destiny really challenged the Gurometer. He really showed the distinction between intent and outward manifestation. He has so many of the characteristics of a guru, but because he seems to primarily act in good faith it's super hard to categorize him. But such is the limit of any scientific metric, it's extremely difficult to reduce super complex topics into easily identified and quantified measurements. And as a Gen Xer, I totally agree with the boomer Matt that I don't understand the concept of streaming, like at all. Whatever floats their boat though.
Cesare, But Def Not A Borgia
2024-04-25 04:14:18 +0000 UTCI don't think either of them do, particularly. It's true that Hasan is more of an 'activist' steamer (or at least presents himself that way) and so generally comes across as more invested in the messages he promotes wrt his political stuff. I don't think he encourages a cult of personality beyond what Destiny or any other streamer does. However I think there are other ways to encourage cult dynamics like the sort of fear based tactics that Destiny and his mods engage in eg all the bans, the brigading, the yelling at his chat etc. To be clear I think they score similarly. I think Destiny's fans are worse but I don't think that's Destiny's fault.
Anna J
2024-04-25 03:39:23 +0000 UTCI'd ask this question in that regard... which one presents himself as being emotionally invested in his followers/community?
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-25 03:25:58 +0000 UTCEnjoying the lively discussion/debate between Matt and Chris about how the metrics themselves should be interpreted though!
Anna J
2024-04-25 03:19:27 +0000 UTCScoring D lower than Hasan on the cult dynamics metric? C'mon now...
Anna J
2024-04-25 03:17:24 +0000 UTCI don't know how to explain this in sufficient detail but I'll try. The basic premise of his fitness youtube channel, currently near 2 million subs, is that he's a buff guy who'll explain what types of performance enhancing drugs bodybuilders take to get their physique, rather than the vast majority of the fitness influence that swear they're "natty" (taking no drugs) while trying to sell you bullshit supplements. You could almost call his channel "decoding the fitness industry". He's also been on the gurusphere podcast circuit a fair amount in something of a pivot from his bread and butter content, he was on Jordan Peterson's podcast 2 months ago (link here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp3pCrgi_Vc), and has been on Joe Rogan's podcast 2 times, and probably some other gurus I can't recall off the top of my head. He's also great friends with Andrew Huberman. What gets weird is that he used to actively engage with his subreddit, /r/moreplatesmoredates, and has somewhat of a cultish following there who don't know what to do with themselves since he abandoned them (https://old.reddit.com/r/moreplatesmoredates/comments/18y27b8/why_did_derek_leave_us/). If you know anything about bodybuilding forums, the combination of personalities that try injecting enough drugs to kill a horse with the obsession over the male physique that is definitely in no way linked to a homoerotic obsession can spiral out of control rather quickly. This post on twitter that went viral about a week ago encapsulates the average post on the sub these days. https://twitter.com/squirtstain/status/1780037055222821027
Mutated_Cuhnt
2024-04-25 01:23:53 +0000 UTCWill update the record. Also what is the strange turn if you don’t mind me asking?
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-04-25 01:01:15 +0000 UTCNew Paypig here, specifically for Destiny content (PBUH). Great coverage. You missed that he actually does have a supplement sponsor, he has a GorillaMind promocode for 10% off, understable considering there's 10+ years of lore to cover. Also I believe the guy who helped found that supplement brand, Derek (moreplatesmoredates), would be an interesting online personality/guru to cover one day, especially since its an example of what happens when the Guru stops posting/being active. He also has a very active reddit community, but its taken an awfully strange turn since he stopped making regular content.
Mutated_Cuhnt
2024-04-25 00:52:48 +0000 UTC
