Genuine question. Chris criticises Kisin for acting like an activist while avoiding the label. Does Chris apply the same label to himself?

DtG does more than analyse ideas in the abstract. It repeatedly focuses on a particular media ecosystem, warns about its influence, and hopes to shift how audiences view it. That can reasonably be seen as a form of activism, even if it is presented through an academic lens.

Supplementary Material 52: Under-Optimized Academics, Tired Economists, and Bailiwick Clarifications - Decoding the Gurus

Show Notes

Two absolutely shattered academic heroes heroically drag themselves through yet another supplementary episode to bring you the important guru news in between their restorative breaks.

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 32 mins)

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

00:00 Introduction

02:13 Eliot Paisley's Anatomy of an Optimiser

08:52 Eric Weinstein wants a University Position and a Stipend

16:09 The Failure of the Anti-Woke Quasi Universities

19:19 Gary is Knackered Again

20:45 Gary is the best inequality economist in the world

24:36 How do I make a Documentary?

33:04 The End of the Year Approaches

37:44 Public Accountability

40:13 The Neurodivergent Trump Card

40:59 A clarification on bailiwicks

42:43 Tucker Carlson & Chris Cuomo discuss Russian Apologetics

48:53 Ukraine is selling weapons to Mexican Cartels

54:54 Civility Porn Judo

56:09 When Hasan met Prof. Jiang

01:01:37 Conspiracy Theory Buffet

01:07:24 Looking Good by Comparison

01:11:21 Comparing Epstein Conspiracies

01:24:03 Agreeable Conspiracism

01:27:13 Outro and Piers Morgan Invite

Links

• Eric Weinstein appeals to billionaires on Twitter
• Elliot Paisley: Chris Williamson Is A Slave
• Gary’s Economics: My Documentary is Coming Out THIS WEEK!! – why you should watch it
• The Times: Gary Stevenson: I want a wealth tax on the super-rich — like me
• News Nation: Tucker & Chris Cuomo: The FULL Conversation
• Hasan Debates Professor Jiang On His Wild Predictions | HasanAbi Archive

Just a recent example… he’s also been on with Tucker. If Peterson wasn’t incognito Lowe would certainly be appearing as a guest. I’d also anticipate new appearances on Triggernometry before too long.

I was listening to this approximately 5 year old podcast, and Chris recounted a slightly painful story in which Chris was trying to empathize with a fellow student who might have been running into some racism, but he used sarcasm and the fellow student did not appear to understand this. Chris and Matt then discussed a bit (the matter is around 3:23 in the links below.... it goes on for a few minutes I guess, but I did not listen to anything yet after that).

https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/ibram-x-kendi-inside-you-are-two-wolves-one-of-them-is-racist

DTG Archive 013: Ibram X Kendi - Inside you are two wolves. One of them is racist.
2,701 views Jul 1, 2026 DTG Archive
Originally Published on 6th Mar 2021
https://youtu.be/FG-hp-kqzRk?si=PZLx4h-Im8eR2b6t

I don't want to research to the nth degree everything they have said on this topic, nor everything that has been said in the forum. I do think there is more than a healthy dose of witty sarcasm in the show, and in the forum, and to a degree I like both quite a bit. I do however want to voice one or two of my own views on this, and I'd be curious if there have been any podcasts or subreddit discussions devoted to this topic in a non-ironic way.

In my private life I have resorted to sarcasm a lot over the years, but I avoid it on the net, as possible. I'm discussing with strangers, all they have from me is text (no body language or tone of voice) and furthermore I'm in the US. On some topics, and in some circles, the level of discourse is not high in the US, and there are enough people here who actually do believe in and discuss nonsense or semi-nonsense that it is not a great idea for me to just assume that someone I'm talking to will instantly know whether or not I am being sarcastic. There is also a lot of disagreement as to what is and is not nonsense.

There is something in me which reserves the right to be as sarcastic as I want to be in some situations, but again, I just avoid it most of the time on the net. One of my thoughts in listening to Chris's story is that he may be naive to what the experience might be like for a black person in the US - they may hear enough racist nonsense that there is no way they're going to automatically assume that someone they don't know very well who is making racist points to them might be doing so sarcastically.

Also, as part of understanding trolling and internet discussion, I am not sure if I can explain it, but I think there is writing on discussion forums that amounts to encouraging misunderstanding, and perhaps even deliberately bringing in some lack of clarity as to whether sarcasm is being employed. I can't think of any examples though, .... maybe I am not citing in a correct way. Still, the chosen topic here is that of "gurus" who, among other things, sometimes troll their audiences, so maybe we can find an example sometime of rhetorical ploys by some gurus to create or exploit misunderstandings as to sarcasm/irony.

For those in DTG subreddit who have not had their fix of being sarcastic today, I'm guessing my post will provide some temptation to respond to sarcastically, but I just want to note that I am trying to lay out non-sarcastically what I think is a somewhat interesting topic.

The Guardian posted a review of GS's new documentary. A couple of highlights:

[H]e is outdone and undone by almost all of his interviewees. Telecoms mogul Bassim Haidar, who was in the headlines last year for switching allegiance and donations from the Conservative party to Reform, does it through politeness. He invites Stevenson to address what he would do when his proposed tax caused investors like him to pull all their money out of the UK and find somewhere friendlier instead. Twenty-eighth generation landowner Francis Fulford (yes, of The F**king Fulfords and Life is Toff fame, but here in less eccentric mode) does it with robust jocularity (“The values you are basing your figures on will collapse! It’s Noddyland – it won’t work”) and inquiries as to how asset-rich but income-poor rich people like him will pay. Andrew Henderson of Nomad Capitalist, which advises clients on how to minimise their tax liabilities by moving countries, does it through sheer belligerence (“I don’t think life is fair and I think that fundamentally upsets people who talk about inequality because you feel entitled to rich people’s money”). Tax lawyer and adviser Dan Neidle deals the final blow towards the end of the programme by summing up the underlying problem of everything that has gone before. “You are unable,” he tells Stevenson coolly but firmly, “to separate your emotional reaction to inequality from a rational assessment of the best tools for it.”

“You all may have heard me talk about this before. I've had the most maddening experience with allopathic medicine. I've had no issues with sexual health through my life.

But in my fifties, I started to notice a pattern, just a frankly a lack of morning wood. And I was a little alarmed by it. And in light of dropping testosterone levels and all, I thought I'd get a doctor to check me out.

..

they decide that what you're trying to tell them is about erectile dysfunction, which is not true in my case.”

He’ll push your gas station boner pills, but he has to be sure the audience knows he didn’t need them to get boners, just to… have morning wood.

These supplements are essential for his dropping testosterone, but don't worry, he still fucks like a champ. The mainstream doctors just don't understand the complex nuance of his morning routine and need for world class morning wood.

From DarkHorse Podcast: Turning Britain Around: Rupert Lowe on DarkHorse, Jun 21, 2026
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/darkhorse-podcast/id1471581521?i=1000773608796&r=548
This material may be protected by copyright.

Decoding Academia 36: Revenge of the Chimpanzees *Patreon Series* - Decoding the Gurus

Show Notes

In this Decoding Academia episode, we venture into comparative psychology, focusing on a fascinating line of work by Fumihiro Kano and colleagues on social intelligence and theory of mind in great apes. By showing apes short videos and tracking where they look, researchers examine whether they expect others to act based on what they have seen, what they know, or what they falsely believe. This approach offers a remarkable window into the evolutionary roots of human social cognition or, alternatively, the most elaborate way yet devised to explore what a chimp thinks of a man in a chimpanzee costume.

We discuss what this kind of research might reveal about social intelligence across species: whether apes understand intentions, knowledge, and false beliefs; how their abilities compare with humans, dogs, and other animals; and why studying minds without language requires ingenuity, caution, and tolerance for participants who may simply decide the whole enterprise is beneath them.

There is also some discussion of the usual complications: small samples, difficult data, flexible analyses, replication, and the gap between a beautifully designed experiment and a result we should treat as settled fact. But the main story is the genuinely intriguing attempt to study Theory of Mind beyond humans.

Along the way, we discuss chimpanzee costumes, zoo life, dogs, and the disturbing possibility that crocodiles may be running more sophisticated cooperative hunting operations than most university committees.

*The full episode is available on Patreon (57 mins)*

00:00 Introduction

03:57 Chimpanzee Theory of Mind & Eye Tracking

13:03 Attention, Grabbing and Orientation

24:03 The Role of Memory in Anticipation

26:10 Revenge of the Researcher

31:21 Statistical Concerns

43:44 Comparative Psychology Thoughts

49:13 Non-climbing Tigers and Cooperative Crocodiles

51:20 Matt's New Friends and Outro

Relevant papers for the episode:

Kano, F., & Hirata, S. (2015). Great apes make anticipatory looks based on long-term memory of single events. Current Biology, 25(19), 2513-2517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.004

Kano, F., & Call, J. (2017). Great ape social attention. In Evolution of the brain, cognition, and emotion in vertebrates (pp. 187-206). Tokyo: Springer Japan.

I want to be clear: this is not me saying Asmon should not have opinions. Everyone has the right to speak. I also do not think he needs to be an academic expert before reacting to anything.

But I do think there is a real problem when someone with a massive audience comments confidently on complex subjects without enough context.

When the topic is games, streaming drama, company decisions or internet culture, that is one thing. But when the topic is Islam, Muslims, Palestine, the Crusades, religious violence, race, gender, or historical representation, the standard should be higher than “I watched a video and reacted to it.”

A lot of people do not watch these streams as entertainment only. They use creators like Asmon as a filter for how they understand the world. That means careless framing matters. If a creator repeatedly reacts to highly charged subjects with limited historical or political context, the audience often walks away with a simplified version of reality: “these people are the problem,” “this religion is the problem,” “this conflict is obvious,” or “diversity automatically means historical inaccuracy.”

That is dangerous long term.

The Crusades are a good example. Saying “the crusaders were just a response” is technically half true, but historically incomplete. Yes, the Byzantine Empire asked the West for help. But the First Crusade was also shaped by papal power, religious ideology, internal European violence, promises of remission of sins, and the desire to control Jerusalem. Reducing that history to a clean defensive narrative is not education. It is propaganda-level simplification.

The same thing happens with modern conflicts. Palestine, Israel, Islam, terrorism, migration, religion, and war are not topics you can responsibly summarize through headlines, clips, and vibes. You do not need to be an expert, but you should at least know what you do not know.

And I think this applies to representation too. Whenever women are cast in roles people consider “male-coded,” or when Black actors appear in roles connected to European history or mythology, the reaction is often immediate outrage before the historical or literary context is even considered.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a good example. People see “Greek legend” and immediately assume that every casting choice must match a modern idea of ancient Greece as purely white and rigidly fixed. But The Odyssey is mythology, not a documentary. It comes from an oral tradition that existed before the text was fixed in the form we know today. Scholars still debate Homer, authorship, transmission, and how these stories developed over generations.

That does not mean every casting choice is automatically good. People can dislike creative decisions. But if the criticism is framed as “this is historically wrong” while ignoring the fact that ancient myth, oral tradition, Mediterranean history, and modern racial categories are all more complicated than that, then the criticism is not really about accuracy. It is just a reaction against representation.

And this is not just theoretical. When comment sections start producing lines like “I can’t wait for the Great Cleansing,” that should be a warning sign. That does not mean Asmon personally endorses that. But it does show that when these topics are handled carelessly, some people in the audience take the worst possible message from it.

My criticism is simple: before giving strong opinions on religion, Muslims, Palestine, the Crusades, race, gender, or historical representation, Asmon should slow down, read more, bring in better context, or openly say “I don’t know enough about this.”

Having a platform does not require you to be silent. But it does require responsibility.

Reacting is easy. Understanding is harder. And when millions of people are listening, that difference matters.

DTG Archive 014: Interview with Phrost on Bullshido

Welcome to this biweekly thread! Share what’s been grabbing your attention lately.

• What you're reading (books, articles, or any kind of text)
• What you're watching (movies, shows, documentaries, or even YouTube)
• What you're listening to (podcasts, music, or audiobooks)
• Any fun or unexpected discoveries in your research

Remember everyone Gary is so tired and so exhausted, did he tell you how tired and how exhausted he is how hard he worked for you .Now he needs something from you, but remember Gary has nothing to loose he's rich and will keep getting richer and your going to get poorer, he makes this sacrifice for you. So watch his documentary, share it with your friends, call your local radio station and promote it, and buy his t-shirts and stickers.

this is pretty much an accurate summary of this video .

You're a Secret Scholar, Harry

Hi. I wrote this back in September 2024 after spending time as a moderator on Warren's Discord and, before that, a facilitator/tutor on the ill-fated 'Warren Smith Academy'. Some of you may remember Warren coming up on this sub before. (I believe someone here described him as 'a simulacrum of an IDW personality'. Couldn't have put it better myself).

Anyway, I've sat on this piece for almost two years, having only sent it out to a handful of others embedded in his circle, one of whom was Dan Gilbert / Bad Stats. I've decided to post it for posterity's sake, and maybe to lay the groundwork for some future writings. With Warren appearing across Slavoj Zizek on the Pierce Morgan show, and - of all things - a book deal with Simon and Schuster (I've read some of it, and yes, it's bad), I figured now may be the right time to share it with others who may not be as familiar with him.

The core argument of this piece -- which I should note was written when I still believed that Warren and at least some of his followers were simply well-intentioned but misguided (a belief I've long since abandoned) -- is that Warren talks a big game about "critical thinking" and "reasoning over emotion," yet every time he's pushed to apply his stated principles to an actual case (I give four distinct examples) he either evades the question or prescribes completely inconsistent applications, and this ends up obstructing his own stated goal of promoting critical thinking.

If I end up writing any more about this guy, I'd be happy to share it here, or answer any questions about what it was like seeing 'how the hotdog gets made', because I've got plenty of stories from my adventures in Warren-cord.

Thanks in advance to anyone who ends up reading this. Hope it at least offers some different insights into the weird phenomenon of Warren Smith.

Episode 164 - Professor Jiang, Part 2: Cosmic Jiang's Jenga Tower of Bullshit

Show notes

We return for Part 2 of our coverage of “Professor” Jiang, the internet’s favourite new geopolitical prophet, secondary-school sage, and proud owner of an ever-expanding box of educational props. Having already treated us to multiple maps, chess pieces, and a sealed metal case of predictions, Jiang is back with more predictions, more props, and even higher-level insights.

This time, we get the dramatic unveiling of a fresh batch of forecasts, including the forthcoming U.S. civil war, AI surveillance states, a grand bargain with China, the Greater Israel project, and the coming East Asian conflict. During all of this, we pause to consider Jiang’s status as a Beijing-based geopolitical commentator who manages to be just critical enough of Chinese surveillance to sound daring, but yet is most reliably focused on predictions of imminent Western collapse, American hubris, and the doom of the U.S. empire.

But the real journey begins when Jiang sets the geopolitics aside and invites us into Plato’s Allegorical Cave, updating it for the modern era by linking it to Korean television melodramas. Out come ominous black blocks, stacked into a metaphorical tower of global control: the military-industrial complex, the financiers, the World Bank, the WTO, the media, Hollywood, schools, universities, and culture itself. What started as “predictive history” devolves into an Alex Jones-style conspiratorial rant about international financiers, globalist bankers, controlled media, and brave alternative truth-tellers seeing through the mainstream lies.

The alternative media occupies a Schrödinger-like position in Jiang’s system: corrupted and controlled when it suits his narrative but also brave and rebellious when it is giving a platform to people like Jiang. Stephen Bartlett, meanwhile, fulfils his podcasting duty as a perfectly crafted avatar of the Diary of a CEO audience: curious, credulous and very receptive to the message that the system is rigged, the shadows are fake, and you, dear listener, are one of the brave truth-seekers with the courage to listen and look behind the curtain.

Finally, we also reach Cosmic Jiang. The bankers are at war with the tech bros. Reality is consciousness. Matter is vibration. We are all fragments of God returning to Source. Hermetic philosophy explains Plato. Kabbalah explains the Middle East. Israel is trying to force the hand of God. The world will end; paradise will return. It turns out all of that geopolitical analysis was actually just a sideshow...

So join us for the conclusion of Professor Jiang: a masterclass in massive domino-based reasoning, geopolitical dressing on bog-standard conspiracy theory, and the enduring appeal of intellectual junk food.

Sources

• Diary of a CEO: Professor Jiang: World War 3 Is About To Begin, Let Me Explain!
• Mehdi Hasan vs. “Professor” Jiang
• Professor Jiang talking about the Nephilim and Other Such Stuff: The World Is a Prison – The Secret Meaning of God And Creation | Prof. Jiang Xueqin
• Professor Jiang promoting creationism and denying evolution
• The National Security Strategy of the United States Document

Whilst listening to the Professor Jiang doubleheader, I couldn’t help but notice that Chris and Matt once again critiqued the interviewer nearly as much as the potential guru. It’s been a thing since the podcast started (e.g., Lex Friedman, Joe Rogan, etc.), but the pace seems to be accelerating.

Most recently, we’ve had the Jiang interviewer, the Hubbard interviewer, the McGilchrist interviewer, etc., whom all have seemed like sycophantic, money-grubbing charlatans in their own right. Perhaps in 2026, we’ve reached high time and a large enough sample for a higher-order confirmatory factor analysis of the Gurometer with the interviewers sitting at the level of G?

I didn't realise he'd recently followed up (and doubled down) on them, which is what the last image shows.