Guru Right to Reply: Chris Williamson *UNEDITED* (AUDIO)
Added 2021-11-29 16:02:55 +0000 UTCAudio version of our extended discussion with host of the Modern Wisdom podcast & YouTube channel. An early morning chat for us but one that I think was very worth having and raises lots of relevant topics for both the podcast and the broader topics we tackle. Welcome any feedback and enjoy!
-Chris
Comments
I’m 23 minutes in and already yelling at my phone. This is probably premature to say before letting him potentially save himself later in the conversation, but how can DtG’s discussion of him “permanently close doors” for CW *more* than his giving voice to Stefan Molyneux? How about taking responsibility for the content he creates and the effect that has on his own future opportunities, rather that clutching false cancel-culture pearls because someone else was briefly critical?
stephanie
2022-01-03 22:11:24 +0000 UTCIt will be next week!
Christopher Kavanagh
2021-12-02 23:42:47 +0000 UTCI was generally much more impressed than I thought I would be by Chris. I found his anecdote of bring at a party with a table of big name influencers and discovering that EVERYBODY knew about DTG absolutely hilarious. I thought he was at his most dislikeable when saying how there was nothing it it for him to police and vet who he has on to maintain some kind of moral purity and that it's even against his interests. The argument seemed to be that when you start a show the only metric you care about is money and views and that things like integrity, doing good in the world or even just having a smaller but higher quality audience are not worth anything. Glad Matt pushed back and explained to him that this is short term thinking and in the long run you'll be pleased you set standards for yourself. Just a shame he didn't seem to already realize this. View counts for their own sake is a very shallow goal.
Tasty3141
2021-12-02 23:26:26 +0000 UTCSeems like this episode would be good to release to the public feed too. Only fair if the original conversation of him with Saad was there. Existing precedent: Sam.
michael r
2021-12-02 12:48:36 +0000 UTCThis was peak civility porn :') But really it was a very pleasant discussion to listen to. The fact that Chris W took the criticism as a chance to reflect and grow is very impressive, and actually made me want to check him out myself. Who knows, maybe once this podcast is a heavy hitting juggernaut it will serve as an incentive for honest discourse.
Stigs
2021-12-01 13:54:54 +0000 UTCThanks Peter!
Christopher Kavanagh
2021-12-01 07:07:00 +0000 UTCI thought that was a fantastic interview, well done! Big props to Chris W for reaching out and speaking with you, he seemed like he genuinely wanted to learn from your criticisms. I think he raised an interesting point on how smaller podcasters can be effected if you are too critical, and how you may have to grapple with this more as the pod gets bigger. Hopefully more gurus take up your right of reply offer!
Peter Kerr
2021-12-01 06:57:43 +0000 UTCThanks and the conversation itself was not strenuous but the scheduling and lack of sleep it required was ;). I agree I wouldn't rule out talking with an extremist, I just think you have to be careful in those contexts.
Christopher Kavanagh
2021-12-01 03:40:04 +0000 UTCYep you are right algorithms and platforms play a big part and we didn't cover that!
Christopher Kavanagh
2021-12-01 01:10:42 +0000 UTCThis was very interesting but something entirely missing from the conversation about incentives and whether there is a viable audience for content that isn’t just partisan or towing various lines… is that I think Chris Williamson is right that currently the insentives are like that but it’s not 100% the audience. It’s the platforms and the way they work and how these AI recommendations engines are used to create feeds. This is at least a part of it since they use features of human physcology to ramp up these existing issues (tribalism, etc). I think Chris Williamson in arguing against Matt that twhen he said that he thinks there is an audience has not yet understood and grappled with how it’s not just humans deciding what gets watched and what doesn’t. I have hope if we can regulate and fix these AI systems curating our discourse that not all but some of the issues will reduce. That and more content like gurus pod and educating young folk on rhetoric and media tricks.
YellowDreams
2021-11-30 19:42:02 +0000 UTCYeah, I was also trying to make a broader case for the clones of the Grove of Academus, but the narrower day-job point may indeed be the decisive one.
Tom Allison
2021-11-30 16:10:06 +0000 UTCGreat point. There is a vast difference between the podcasts I listen to where the hosts have a day job and the podcast is a passion project and those for whom the podcast is their day job. Personally, I stick with the former and drift away from the latter. A drive for clicks is a race to the bottom and I lose interest in what they have to say.
Mike Nelson
2021-11-30 14:24:27 +0000 UTCIt seems like Chris W. had some genuine and valuable feedback but his Conversion-Rate-Optimization speak was more than a bit off-putting. On the one hand, I'd really like to communicate to him (is he a patron, by any chance?) that a phrase he used several times "upon reflection" points to a great way he could respond to his acknowledgement that he is (like us all) working through all of this stuff as he goes. He should do episodes called "upon reflection" as he learns more about the people he interviews -- if/when he thinks the record needs to be corrected/extended -- and set the record straight while also extending the invitation to the original guest to return/respond... I humbly submit at least that that mechanism could address the issues he raised of "not knowing better", the first time around, and would be very attractive to a certain sort of not-primarily-partisan audience, if that is what he wants. That idea, though, as well as his expressed worries about "growing audience size" and "engagement" etc. brings up a potentially unbridgeable gap between your two podcasts when it comes to incentives -- and might be what folks are responding to in DtG that springs directly from your being academics in your day jobs rather than that being the sometimes snarkily assessed unfortunate incidental situation. I myself have been in and out of serious academic settings and can very well understand the disparagement of them from the insider's view, but I am beginning to wonder if that, much as democracy can be called "the worst, most reprehensible form of government aside from all the others", whether the academy isn't also absolutely virtuous in the pursuit of truth relative to any other context/set of institutions and just seems so rotten and dysfunctional from an insider's perspective, "knowing how the sausage gets made", so to speak. It's a new thought for me, as well -- maybe the incentives make politicians and public intellectuals not the best sources of useful discourse, in the end. It's not that the academics are better people in any fundamental way, but that the coin of the realm/basis for reputations is, at least, "being most accurate based on well examined evidence" as opposed to *merely* "being sexiest" (as it is in most other contexts). Being both, of course, BOOM. But apparently "sexy" is the easier one to game...
Tom Allison
2021-11-30 13:49:52 +0000 UTCI thought it was a good conversation. I think this format of being open to conversations with those you have critiqued is really, really useful, though I can imagine also a lot of work and strain on you guys. I hope you will keep it up (Chris did mention a slight caveat at some point that it might not apply if it would give a platform to someone truly despicable, but that might be when it is most useful -- haven't you said - approx. - that one oughtn't be afraid of platforming evil as long as its properly contextualized?).
Tom Allison
2021-11-30 12:53:53 +0000 UTCForget about audience capture, this bloke is all about capturing an audience. C’mon; reality TV, promoting nightclubs, promoting himself. Got me at “you guys are going to run out of gurus” and when that was scoffed at tried the “people are going to self censor knowing that DtG are lurking”. Utter bullshit! Will probably appear in the future as a full blown influencer/guru. And then you will decode his rubbish at which point you will undoubtedly have to give him his right of reply. Just switch the time zones next time, you two looked like you’d just had a couple of bucket bongs. Don’t let the bastards grind you down!
elcid
2021-11-30 09:36:46 +0000 UTCI just listened to a recent Modern Wisdom episode.. #382 with Charles Eisenstien on the Climate debate. Eisenstien is a guru that I know quite a few of my hippy/hetrodox friends are influenced by. He preaches that science is a religion and famously wrote about anti vaxers being persecuted in a similar way to Jews in nazi Germany (he also wrote essay 'The Corrination' about the pandemic) here is a much to decode...
Tina Matthews
2021-11-30 07:51:19 +0000 UTCThat was painful to get through. Agree with the above comment above that your original assessment of this guy was the correct one. He doesn't do minimum amounts of research on his guests. It isn't about being academically accredited, it is about due diligence. This guy is a thin-skinned crybaby whose only concern is growing his clicks. Listening to him over the last two hours was two hours too many. I will be glad never to hear him again.
Mike Nelson
2021-11-30 04:09:30 +0000 UTCYeah I thought we covered this on the episode? He makes an argument for his guest selection choices that seems broadly supported by his more recent content. I think he’d readily acknowledge he fell into something of a right wing/IDW rabbit hole for a period. Whingeing wise, I need more specifics! Entirely possible but I think he made some valid points.
Christopher Kavanagh
2021-11-29 21:49:30 +0000 UTCFrom the Modern Wisdom podcast blurb on Apple podcasts: Life lessons from the smartest people on the planet. Including guests like Dr Jordan Peterson, Ryan Holiday, James Clear, Robert Greene, Aubrey Marcus, Seth Godin, Douglas Murray, He’s also had Gen. McChrystal on to talk about reporters/ mistresses, confidentiality? Chris sounded defensive and as the English say, whingeing. You guys were too nice. I hope it’s not a trend.
Tom McCool
2021-11-29 21:23:47 +0000 UTClol, I followed this advice accidentally. I noticed and replaced the file but fell asleep without hitting save... fixed now!
Christopher Kavanagh
2021-11-29 19:47:50 +0000 UTCYou may want to sleep and then download the actual Williamson audio ‘cause this ain’t it.
Tom McCool
2021-11-29 18:27:14 +0000 UTC
