Sensemaking Episode is Out!
Added 2022-09-14 07:58:38 +0000 UTCHey everyone,
Sorry for the radio silence. Matt and I have been busy beavers with work schedules, holidays, and pandemic-related unpleasantness.
We have, however, managed to get the sensemaker episode edited and released. We considered releasing it in two parts but I (Chris) was convinced that would annoy some people so we kept it all together.
We realise this is a LOOOONG one but it's also a special episode with a lot of sense to untangle!
In any case, we will be back with bonus content as soon as health returns to all members of the pod but for now, hope you enjoy the episode.
As always, feedback and comments are welcome!
Comments
I never did get a shout-out. And here I thought I was in a committee parasocial relationship ;)
Jennifer Nelson
2022-09-23 02:14:05 +0000 UTCThat is disappointing. I hadn’t heard him comment on that stuff. Or maybe I blocked it out…
Evan
2022-09-22 10:39:09 +0000 UTCI (Chris) listened to Daniel talk about Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine and he fell into all the usual traps the sensemakers did, finding it all very complicated and both sides having valid points. It wasn't that hard if you understand basic standards of evidence and conspiracy/alternative medicine dynamics.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-22 02:29:38 +0000 UTCThey can’t say it, or it might not be real, however, perhaps a shadow of a suggestion? Time (space?) to consult the Society of Umbralogical Parallax Correlators! my Interociter is now set to game b. see you on the other side, suckers!!
Jason Trock
2022-09-20 19:07:57 +0000 UTCI like Schmactenburger. I’ve watched a handful of his videos and he seems to have a very limited message that he delivers in slightly different ways to different groups. I think that he is actually intelligent and is communicating substance rather than rhetorical ornamentation. I’ve also gotten the impression that he reads his interlocutors pretty well and corrects for their hobby horses. When he was on Brett’s show he seemed to anticipate Brett’s idiosyncrasies and had ways to avoid those diversions and steer the conversation back into topic. I believe I caught that same dynamic when he was on Joe Rogan with Tristan Harris. I was not aware that he sold supplements however. I’d only ever seen him in other people’s shows and didn’t know he was shilling anything, so that’s kind of disturbing. But my read on him so far has been that he sincerely wants to see a way to fix the world. I think I agree with his assessment of things generally, but I think he sidles up to the IDW crowd to try to steer its course in some degree. But I could see him moving on to other communities as well, spreading his message as widely as possible if the opportunity arose. I just don’t see the same set of dangers and/or plain nonsense in him that I do in others that you cover. And to be honest, you guys didn’t really shit on him too much in this show to begin with.
Evan
2022-09-20 10:37:41 +0000 UTCWay harsh guys. I give you a 5-star review and don’t even get a shout out in your Patreon mentions at the end of the episode? Sigh. I shall have to aspire to guru status.
Jesta
2022-09-19 07:03:59 +0000 UTCOh ok! Thanks for the reply
Treebee
2022-09-17 12:45:01 +0000 UTCAhh I see. Thanks, did not know that! This episode was the first time I have listened to either of the trio. Jordan Hall did sound very arrogant and thin skinned with his condescending treatment of Jamie Wheal, so in a way I guess that I am not overly surprised by his shitty COVID takes either. Too much ego and unnecessary contrarian thinking seems to go hand in hand with some of these gurus!
SHOUNAK SARKAR
2022-09-17 11:46:31 +0000 UTCFunny part of all this coherance talk is coherance is a real word with real meanings that are not difficult to understand. Maybe they should call what they are talking about incoherance..For fuck sakes... these guys need to get out more
Justin F
2022-09-17 05:41:36 +0000 UTCPseudo-profound bullshit has always been my favourite Gurometer™ metric. Needless to say I enjoyed this episode a lot. It's a lot of fun hearing Chris and Matt poke fun at the Sensemakers, especially because they themselves are having such a good time doing it. Also quite a relief to analyse bonafide gurus who completely stay away from culture war topics. Even better: I finally got my Patreon shout-out in this episode, couldn't have picked a better one!
Maarten Wesselius
2022-09-17 02:56:16 +0000 UTCOh that's super normal we are backlogged by months and months! It will be a surprise.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 22:55:26 +0000 UTCHey! I just joined September 5th and I didn’t get a shoutout :’( haha
Treebee
2022-09-16 21:29:26 +0000 UTCTook me 2 days, but I’m 30 minutes from the finish line.
Treebee
2022-09-16 20:59:40 +0000 UTCYeah I really think you are on to something here. Matt and I have talked about this very thing and look at Rogan and Bret. Man-children.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:08:59 +0000 UTCLucky for him, less lucky for those around him I imagine.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:07:17 +0000 UTCI think the reactionary politics do come along… but it’s not so upfront. Jordan Hall’s covid takes about as well informed as Bret/Jordan Peterson though.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:06:33 +0000 UTCYour service is noted.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:05:38 +0000 UTCWell have you considered it like a hay stack… or a stacked set of chairs… any metaphor might help.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:04:36 +0000 UTCSounds like good advice! Gurus coin minting soon.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:03:48 +0000 UTCThis made me LOL.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:02:54 +0000 UTCRight… poor Matt!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:02:43 +0000 UTCWe live to serve.
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:02:29 +0000 UTCCheers, we ‘enjoyed’ it too!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-16 14:02:16 +0000 UTCTook me 2 days, but I got through all 3.5+ hours. I agree with commenters above that you made it entertaining and enlightening. And "lawyerdiaper"'s characterization of Matt was entirely off-base! I read his Twitter thread in real time. He did the work! Appreciate all you do, guys!
Arabella Holzapfel
2022-09-16 10:30:17 +0000 UTCThis episode was so good! Vindicating and like Matthew Remski said, a public service.
Chris Clark
2022-09-16 04:58:21 +0000 UTCI don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much listening to a podcast. The “sensemakers” were so ridiculous and Chris & Matt’s commentary was hilarious 😂
Katherine
2022-09-15 21:46:39 +0000 UTCThis is exactly what I think. They are in delayed adolescence/early adulthood. Many of us got these pseudo-profound convos out of our systems in HS/college
Jennifer Nelson
2022-09-15 18:09:31 +0000 UTCI am halfway through and think I am finally beginning to grok this whole sense making thing. (I admit, I'm probably still a toddler when it comes to coherence. I won't be driving a sports car any time soon.) Could it be that these people just didn't stay up all night talking to their buddies in college? Or ... Do they miss those days? Because listening to these jokers is giving me flashbacks to the early 90s, lying on my philosophy major boyfriend's top bunk trying to get some sleep, while he and three of his friends sat on pillows on the floor, passed a flask, and half whispered shallow thoughts at each other until 3am. Is civility porn really just a holdover from when they had to refrain from true disagreement so they wouldn't raise their voices enough to wake the sleeping theater chick? It's just mutual mental masturbation... Right? And the third is less an ineffable source or presence ... It's more of a semi-erotic tension? I'm just a writer, not a galaxy brain, but in my world, if you can't explain something simply enough that a bright eight year old can understand it, you do not understand your topic well, let alone deeply.
Molly Jacobson
2022-09-15 17:28:09 +0000 UTCThank you for being Sense-Translators. I couldn’t have listened to this without your commentary. Their voices are like nails on a chalkboard. The have the quiet, monotone “we’re-grownups-having-a-very-serious-and-smart-conversation-about-very-serious-and-smart-things” tone that Bret and Heather have mastered. It’s like they’re trying to combine (non)Sense-Making with ASMR to assault our minds and senses more
Jennifer Nelson
2022-09-15 15:41:11 +0000 UTCMatt seemed to think that these lads would max out the guruometer across all the registers. I think we can agree that they've broken the needle on the pseudo-profound bullshit dial. But grievance-mongering? Hmm. Possibly one of the things that makes this semiotic jazz easy to listen to (apart from having to wake yourself up again, every 20 mins) is that some of the uglier sides of gurudom (grievance-mongering, cassandra complex, conspiracy-mongering) don't really get a chance to manifest while these guys are meta-meta-ering away. The one point where I did prick my ears up is when Jordan (iirc?) was like "but of course we can't do anything so crass as to form an organisation". It's very characteristic of the upside-down world these wannabe intellectuals live in, that they avoid any suggestion of linking theory to practice like the plague. Not for them the "preguntando caminamos" (walking, we ask questions) of the Zapatistas or the general organising model of learning from practice.
Paul Bowman
2022-09-15 10:10:50 +0000 UTCIt really is performance art. I wouldn't be able to enjoy it on it's own but it was very entertaining with your commentary interspersed.
Nick Wiebe
2022-09-15 10:05:35 +0000 UTCThis reminds me of the incredibly confusing and frustrating communication style of a friend who is an ex (mildish) druggy. And he told me he didn't regret his time as a druggy because it had made permanent changes to his brain and he felt now that his thinking was on this whole other deeper level compared to the normal boring people around him...
Emma
2022-09-15 09:18:39 +0000 UTCAlso the thing about the metaphors is that use bad ones that don’t actually show what they are talking about.
Giovanni
2022-09-15 02:53:39 +0000 UTCVery hard to listen to the sense making. I think the most interesting this thing some of the metaphors like the elephant and the insisting that Jesus, loa tzu are things usually associated my mind with American Liberal Protestantism. So it’s weird that a bunch of reactionaries are using it.
Giovanni
2022-09-15 02:42:06 +0000 UTCThese trio of guys leave Eric Weinstein for dead lol! Most of the time I had no idea what the heck they were on about. But it was still better than the rubbish that the IDW gurus put out, as at least it's not contaminated by reactionary politics, anti-woke rants and a profound sense of grievance & resentments. These gurus were just engaging in pure apolitical stream of consciousness. And the rapid jumping from one metaphor to the next was jarring and indecipherable. But hey if you want to impress (bore) your guests with your profundity, you can learn a trick or two from Daniel Schmachtenberger, Jamie Wheal & Jordan Hall.
SHOUNAK SARKAR
2022-09-15 02:27:15 +0000 UTCI listened; I suffered; I stayed to the end. I may be a masochist.
Tim Tripp
2022-09-15 00:00:11 +0000 UTCSensemaking Cow Violates Rule Omega: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/460
brianshmrian
2022-09-14 21:14:00 +0000 UTCNever have so many words been spoken to say so little.
Mike Nelson
2022-09-14 20:58:04 +0000 UTCThere's a video of Jordan Hall talking about Web 3.0 where he essentially says crypto is the future and the best way to secure your future is to buy into whichever currency has the best "vibes". Man is a grifter. Anyway, great ep! Love Matt's passion for sensemaking!
Sharon Mandair
2022-09-14 18:16:22 +0000 UTCAs with the rest of the Tech Season, it's all a bit 'meh' ...Can we just get back to taking the piss out of Jordan Peterson & Dave Rubin ?
Richard De Val
2022-09-14 17:04:44 +0000 UTCThis one is a little bit like shooting fish in a barrel. The clips definitely take away all context and just make these guys sound like self indulgent buffoons
Sam Pinkerton
2022-09-14 16:18:04 +0000 UTCMy god, this is unbelievably painful and I'm only 40 mins in ! ...No way I'll do 3 hours of this nonsense. No offence to you both but my god, 3 hours of solipsistic, mental masterbation, dripping in self importance ...urgh !
Richard De Val
2022-09-14 15:09:42 +0000 UTCDread it. Run from it. Sensemaking arrives all the same...
Ryan Goss
2022-09-14 12:51:54 +0000 UTCIt's out on the main feed!
Christopher Kavanagh
2022-09-14 11:05:08 +0000 UTCWaiting on this. My morning walk tomorrow is going to be very silent if you don’t realise you haven’t posted the audio.
Frances Sebesta
2022-09-14 09:17:42 +0000 UTCI think you forgot to attach the video?
Gavin Boyter
2022-09-14 08:20:19 +0000 UTCSensemaking
Klas Bergholtz
2022-09-14 08:06:51 +0000 UTC
