Decoding The Gurus

Interview with Julian Walker on Conspirituality, Spiritual Gurus, & Culture Wars (Audio) *UNEDITED*

Audio of the video version.

"We have a meandering and long overdue chat with Julian Walker about a range of topics including Conspirituality, US & non-US Culture wars, podcasting & politics, and other sundry matters.

We accept full responsibility for making Julian give hot takes on the Trucker Convoy too.

I like how the light in Julian's video slowly disappears as the conversation progresses.

Hope you guys enjoy!"

Interview with Julian Walker on Conspirituality, Spiritual Gurus, & Culture Wars (Video) *UNEDITED*

We have a meandering and long overdue chat with Julian Walker about a range of topics including Conspirituality, US & non-US Culture wars, podcasting & politics, and other sundry matters. 

We accept full responsibility for making Julian give hot takes on the Trucker Convoy too.

I like how the light in Julian's video slowly disappears as the conversation progresses.

Hope you guys enjoy!

The Master: Upcoming Special episode

Hey guys,

Just advance notice that we are going to do a special episode with some mystery guest hosts in early March and for that we will be discussing the Guru themed 2012 movie 'The Master'. We will record in the first week  of March so if you want to play along would be good to watch before then!

I have a feeling some of you can predict who the mystery guests will be but I won't spoil the surprise for the rest!

Release schedule for next week or two:

Viginia Hef...

Robert Wright episode is released!

Hi everyone,

Told you we would get it out next!

This episode was a welcome relief after the last few episodes and I’m sure you will see that reflected in our charity.

I’ve seen some people hoping that this would be a takedown of Bob based on his current ‘cognitive empathy’ stances towards Putin & Russia. I’m sorry to disappoint but as discussed on the episode we were not focusing on his politics but rather his broader worldview.

We don’t share Bob’s ...

Audio version of Interview with Liam Bright *UNEDITED*

This took longer than I intended, apologies for that! 

And for those who didn't see the video description:

"It's been a long time coming but we finally cornered the internet's favourite philosopher Liam Bright. It is not everyday you get to have a wide ranging discussion with Leverhulme Prize recipient so we tried to make the most of it.

We cover a bunch of topics including how to use Twitter well, just what is logical positivism and why Liam thinks DtG is the final emb...

Interview with Timbah on Toast *UNEDITED*

We have been busy beavers lately with our interviews and have now generated quite a backlog but we would be remiss if we did not share another recent recording this time with the great Timbah.

For anyone not familiar Timbah makes excellent YouTube Docu-series that focus primarily on disreputable characters. He's got a series on Dave Rubin, one on James O'Keefe, and  recent one on Tim Pool. The production values are great and so is his analysis.

It very much parallels our effo...

Liam Bright Interview *UNEDITED* (Video)

It's been a long time coming but we finally cornered the internet's favourite philosopher Liam Bright. It is not everyday you get to have a wide ranging discussion with Leverhulme Prize recipient so we tried to make the most of it.

We cover a bunch of topics including how to use Twitter well, just what is logical positivism and why Liam thinks DtG is the final embodiment of their virtues, why institutions are always completely right and should never be questioned, and how revolutionary ...

Schedule Update

Hey guys,

Just wanted to give a quick update on the planned schedule for the forthcoming episodes over the next few weeks.

This is how we expect things to go (treat the dates with a pinch of salt):

Feb 18th/19th - Robert Wright episode

Feb 25/26th - Virgina Heffernan interview on Gurus, Academic Debates & Edge

Mar 4/5th - Lindsay & O'Fallon episode 

Mar 11/12th - Julian Walker interview on Conspirituality & Culture Wars

Mar 18/19t...

About that Rogan 'apology' video *UNEDITED* (Audio)

The audio version of the video version.

Wherein we see if Joe's apology/explanation is as convincing as many seem to believe.

Grumpy buggers that we are, colour us skeptical...

Interested what others think though!

About that Joe Rogan 'apology' video

We want to get out of the Rogan-verse. We don't even know how we got here...

But we couldn't let the 'apology' video go without a final decoding.

This will come out as a special emergency episode as soon as we get done with some minor editing.

But until then you guys get it in advance! 

Enjoy. 

Audio version coming...

Interview with Dan Wilson from Debunk the Funk *UNEDITED* (Audio)

A bit delayed but here is the audio version of the interview with Dan. We are a bit overloaded with content right now but promise editing is in progress. One or two new episodes may be coming out tomorrow but here...

"We have an extended discussion with Dr. Dan Wilson about his excellent channel debunking Covid misinformation on Youtube, the trials and tribulations of debunking content, the need for more effective science communication, and the origin of his amazing afro!

Was a gr...

Interview with Dan Wilson from Debunk the Funk *UNEDITED* (Video)

We have an extended discussion with Dr. Dan Wilson about his excellent channel debunking Covid misinformation on Youtube, the trials and tribulations of debunking content, the need for more effective science communication, and the origin of his amazing afro!

Was a great pleasure to speak with Dan and we engage in that IDW style back-patting because we genuinely feel his content deserves the praise. Recommend anyone who enjoyed our McCullough and Malone episodes check his channel out. 2022-01-31 12:38:24 +0000 UTC View Post

Next Decoding Academia Paper

Hey everyone,

For those of you who might like to play along. This is the next paper (attached to the post) that we will cover on Decoding Academia (to be recorded next week).

It's a really interesting paper on Moral Psychology co-authored by former podcast guest David Pizarro. 

Chris is a big fan and Matt is due to become one.

Worth a read if you like this kind of thing!

Patreon Clip Folder Updated

Hi everyone,

Just a note to say the clip folder is now up to date.

So we've added:

Mikhaila Peterson
Brene Brown
Joe Rogan & Jocko Willink
Malone & McCullough

AND

O'Fallon & James Lindsay (Part 2): Partly selected by Aaron.

I'm not sure if any of you want these but they are all there! Including many we can not play in each episode due to time.

Have 'fun'.

Interview with Virginia Heffernan on Science & Culture Wars (Video Version) *UNEDITED*

*For those who prefer their video versions... (with no audio levelling)* 

My (Chris') background was an artefact from teaching and not liking the reflection from the lights when it was turned off. Please ignore!

*Notes on the Episode*
Virginia is a journalist and author who has written a bunch on the topic of technology and social media and especially in regards to the Edge organisation. She has a new podcast 'This is Critical' that is encouraging people to look criticall...

Interview with Virginia Heffernan on Science & Culture Wars (Audio Version) *UNEDITED*

Virginia is a journalist and author who has written a bunch on the topic of technology and social media and especially in regards to the Edge organisation. She has a new podcast 'This is Critical' that is encouraging people to look critically at topics, which is quite on brand for us!

We have a  broad discussion about academia, the culture war, anthropology debates, race & IQ rationalists, etc. Will be interested to hear your thoughts. The edited version will not be out on the ...

On Jordan Peterson & Joe Rogan

Hey guys,

Just a quick note to say we will NOT be covering this episode.

We don't have any desire to become a Joe Rogan response podcast but also... there really isn't much to this conversation.

They steer clear of covid for the whole four hours. Only briefly mentioning that Bret & Heather are brave heroes.

There are some very silly segments, especially at the start relating to climate change, but they don't break much new ground that we haven't covered in earlier ...

Jan 2022 Live Hangout

Hey everyone,

For the Galaxy Brain Gurus tier we will have a live hangout in a week!

Yes imagine that one whole week's notice! 

Look forward to seeing some of you then.

Ciao,

Chris

Galaxy Brain Feed Plans

Hey everyone,

Just a note to say that one of my niggling 'need to sort this out' threads relates to the Galaxy Brain Bonus feed. I know it is a few episodes behind and we don't have a great pipeline at the minute for getting the raw content edited and up on the feed.

This is something that I want to get fixed and have a better recording to output system in place.

At present for a normal episode our process looks like this:

Listen to episode > Clip > Organise Cli...

Update on O'Fallon & Lindsay Episode No.2

Hey guys,

Just an update for you.

We've now recorded this episode over two sessions with Aaron. I am biased but I think this is a good one. Some quite amusing conspiracies and only a limited amount of anti-vaccine rhetoric.

We are however hoping that we can get the Robert Wright episode recorded and released this week, ahead of this episode just to break up the unbroken row of terrible people we currently have.

I'm sure many of you don't care but we do think about the ...

Robert Malone & Peter McCullough Gurometer (Video) *UNEDITED*

Hey everyone,

This is a bit of an extended Gurometer episode and is UNEDITED meaning it includes some hunting for clips malarky and  late night over talk (my fault due to caffeine and a minor Zoom delay) that will not make it into the final version.

We will probably cut down the intro segment substantially for release too but here you get the full version with ALL vocal ticks.

Interested in any feedback... this is also a late night recording so Matt isn't stoned. He's s...

Robert Malone & Peter McCullough Gurometer (Audio) *UNEDITED*

-Audio version of the Video version (now uploading)-

Hey everyone,

This is a bit of an extended Gurometer episode and is UNEDITED meaning it includes some hunting for clips malarky and  late night over talk (my fault due to caffeine and a minor Zoom delay) that will not make it into the final version.

We will probably cut down the intro segment substantially for release too but here you get the full version with ALL vocal ticks.

Interested in any feedback... this ...

Interview with Chris about DTG by Meghan Daum

Hi Guys,

I think some of you might enjoy this despite the notable absence of one Matthew Smith.

I had a good time talking with Meghan and I am glad she was willing to have the conversation given her social network and interests.

Interested to hear what anyone who listens thinks!

Cheers,

Chris

A PSA about Shout Outs...

Just a short PSA to say we are hugely backlogged with Patreon shoutouts. To the extent that we are over a year behind! We are thinking of some way to resolve this or at least allow us to catch up sometime in the foreseeable future. But we just wanted to let you know, that if you are wondering if we missed you, the answer is probably not we are just WAAAAAAY behind!

Any suggestions let us know in the comments!

Malone & McCullough Episode Released

I'm sure you have all seen by now but the newest episode was released after marathon editing sessions by Matt.

This was probably the least enjoyable episode we have recorded because the disinformation was so relentless and the topic is so grim.

Nonetheless, it was probably an important episode to do and has been our most successful episode downloads wise on day of release (around 11k). This is a good sign because it suggests that people want to see responses to these kinds of figu...

Update about progress on Malone Episode

Hey everyone,

Just thought you might like some behind the scenes info on the Malone & McCullough episode.

As often happens we were a bit too ambitious with this one. The Malone episode alone resulted in 85 clips. Now we have had clip inflation but this is still a lot. It's on par with the Rogan & Jocko episode. McCullough meanwhile is awaiting clipping this evening.

I've listened to the episode about 2-3 times now so I know there is a metric tonne of craziness there ...

Upcoming Interviews

Hey everyone,

Points to anyone who can identify the gurus in the image above...

Aside from that, as we are busy preparing the Malone & McCullough episode (will be released this week) I thought I'd give an update on some planned interviews coming in the next 1-2 months.

- Timbah on Toast (Feb!) on his excellent videos and his new Tim Pool series

- Rebecca Lewis (prob Feb!) on her research on disinformation and the Alternative Influencers Network

- Elgen Strai...

Decoding Academia #3: (Fogel, 1993) *Audio*

We cover another well known paper this time modelling the 'Iterated Prisoners Dilemma'. Some confusion about payoffs ensues but we hope you find it enjoyable nonetheless.

We blame all errors on the un-goldly hour we recorded. Pdf attached!

Also, sorry folks but special episode will be out next week. It's going to be a regular length episode as too much to cover.

Decoding Academia #3: (Fogel, 1993) *Video*

We cover another well known paper this time modelling the 'Iterated Prisoners Dilemma'. Some confusion about payoffs ensues but we hope you find it enjoyable nonetheless. 

We blame all errors on the un-goldly hour we recorded. Audio to follow and pdf attached!

Also, sorry folks but special episode will be out next week. It's going to be a regular length episode as too much to cover.

Upcoming Episode: Sensemaking Special

Happy New Year to everyone!

Hope you enjoyed the Christmas Special and our recent Decoding Academia episode.

For our next trick, we are going to release a special 'emergency' episode on Rogan and his covid contrarian 'sense makers'. Primarily we will focus on Robert Malone & Peter McCullough, but we are going to address Rogan & the broader alternative 'sense making' ecosystem. In particular, how so many of these alternative media figures seem to be so remarkably credulous ...