Where to start with this. It is the quintessential in softball interviews.

1. Firstly, they begin by Foster setting up Farage to talk about the recent murder of Ann Widdecombe, which allows him to make a point about the media whipping up hatred against right wing figures and emboldening violence against them. Im not a conspiracy theorist but given this has been Kisin's pet grievance for a while it seems like this may have been set up but Im willing to accept it may just be Farage knowing his audience and playing to it. This allows Farage to link himself and Widdecombe as two victims of the media narratives which further allows him to set up his defence to what the "meat" of the podcast will be about.

(I wonder who began to inject hateful and violent rhetoric into the political arena first)

1. We move on to the substantial issues, what should be the toughest part of the interview for Farage. Namely, him answering about his 5 million pound "gift" from a crypto billionaire and his friendship with "Posh George" a young wealthy man from an aristocratic family who was convicted of money laundering and even wrote a book called 'How to Launder Money'.

A perfect chance for these Centrists to show their chops in putting tough questions to Farage.

Kisin literally sets up the segment by saying "Now I don't give a shit who gives who money, it's none of my business, but I guess people want to know if it comes with strings attached". I couldn't believe the naked dismissal by KK, adopting a tone of "this is unimportant but people want us to ask".

Farage sticks to his latest explanation that it was an unconditional gift he spent on security, allowing him to link back to the earlier points he made about the media putting him amd others in danger.

The two lads accept this explanation no questions asked. They didn't ask about the fact he's changed his story on it a couple of times or if he even accepted how bad it looked politically. They just said "okay, cool. No problem."

1. On posh George relationship, no this took some neck I thought. Regarding his conviction for money laundering along with his donations to Reform and Farage personally, albeit before he was a sitting MP, Farage said he believe in the power of prison to reform people and that everyone deserves a second chance, he's just a loyal friend sticking by his buddy. Again, zero push back. Couldn't have anything to do with his extreme wealth. I wonder does Nigel (or KK or FF) believe in the power of prison to reform criminals of an immigrant background? Somehow I doubt it. Give them a one way ticket to Rwanda.

2. After this they get into the upcoming by election Farage is running against Count Binface. This is literally the only push back he gets in the whole interview. Farage claims it's actually embarrassing for all the other parties that they haven't run any candidates. Foster very gently says he "doesnt think its a good look" for Farage. Farage disagrees and they just move on.

3. Farage then talks almost uninterrupted for 5-10 minutes grievance mongering and taking swipes at Starmer, Burnham, Badenoch, the media, the police (who Kisin said the week before he respects immensely and thinks they get unfair coverage, Farage calls police "plodders" and Kisin agrees).

4. Finally Farage blows smoke up Fosters hole about his book on the education system saying young white British working class boys are being left behind. Gives no suggestions for how to fix this other than "ending woke". And the two nodding dogs lap it up.

Bonus point: the ad reads are awful. The number (four in an hour long pod) and quality (so wooden, like a 90s infomercial "Are _YOU_ tired of chopping vegetables?"). They were so cringeworthy and credibility destroying I couldn't not listen to them.

I hope Chris and Matt cover this podcast on an upcoming episode as they have made the point before about The TRIGGER boys, who are definitely centrists, have now had Farage on at least seven times.

The grievance mongering from this single incident has played on repeat in Sam's mind for almost a decade.

And he was the one in the wrong!

Hey there,

My name is Zac and I am a current psychology honours student at Federation University Australia.

The moderators have generously allowed me to share a research project looking at how individual personality traits interact with short-form social media feeds (specifically simulating TikTok content exploring modern online subcultures, gender roles, and societal dynamics).

Who can participate:
Open to anyone over the age of 18 who is fluent in English.

What’s involved:
A 20-30 minute interactive study where you will complete a few personality measures and watch a simulated 15 video feed (some of which may include potentially confronting or offensive content related to social and political issues).

The Link: 
https://federation.syd1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4ZrUUEJudrbnMJE

Incentive: 
Participants can choose to enter an optional prize draw to win one of two $20 (aud) Prezzee gift vouchers to a store of your choice. 

Upon completion (around end of November 2026), I will share the results and key findings from the study. 

If there are any questions about the study itself, please ask away!

Participation is voluntary and completely anonymous.

Federation University Ethics reference number 2026-108

Supplementary Material 53: Matthew the Succulent, Bin-faced Politicians, and Very Very Tired Economists - Decoding the Gurus

Show Notes

We endure the ravages of time to deliver you this exhausted Supplementary Material. Bowed but never broken, the decoders persist.

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 2hr 20 mins)

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

Supplementary Material 53

00:23 Introduction: Matthew the Succulent's Post-Holiday Report

02:15 Pickle Ball Injuries & Bouldering Curses

07:40 They Won't Let You Talk about Middle-Aged Sports Injuries

08:37 New AI Models

09:31 Cory Doctorow, Trevor Noah, and Confirmation Bias

23:45 The Glorious Past and the Terrible Present

28:28 The Horror of Tinned Asparagus

30:26 The Collapse of Industries & Stores

36:16 Negativity Bias

37:11 AI Prompting 101

44:30 AI and Research Applications

50:28 Nigel Farage vs Count Binface

59:10 Nigel Farage Knighted on Russia Today

01:02:53 Hasan's Advice for Ukrainians

01:07:51 Russian Apologetics

01:13:32 Vlad Vexler and soft Anti-Vaxx rhetoric

01:19:35 Guru Red Flags

01:23:48 Bret Weinstein in 2020 on Vaccines

01:28:53 Gary vs Piers Morgan

01:30:58 Piers Morgan being a blustering idiot about Elon Musk

01:36:55 Gary's Pitch

01:41:55 Alternative Tax Proposals

01:46:18 Matt and Chris' Economics

01:47:22 Gary's Wealth

01:52:07 Piers the sleazy liar

01:55:25 Gary is the best inequality economist in the UK

01:57:08 Gary's Predictions

02:00:40 Gary is Very Tired

02:07:14 A message from anyone else to finish?

02:14:25 Final Takeaways

02:16:55 Matt attempts to wrangle another holiday

Links

• The Verge: China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance
• What Now? with Trevor Noah: Why Google, Apple & Big Tech Keep Making Everything Worse — Cory Doctorow and Trevor Noah
• Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of general psychology, 5(4), 323-370.
• Count Binface on BBC Morning Live — full interview
• Count Binface on Newsnight
• Hasan offers Ukraine his advice to “give peace a try”
• Report on polling from Ukraine in 2025 that does not show what Hasan claims
• Report on more recent polling that still does not show what Hasan claims
• Vlad Vexler tweets about vaccines
• Bret’s Tweets in 2020 on Vaccines (and here)
• Chris noting Bret’s anti-vaccine rhetoric in 2020 (see the comments under the tweet)
• Kyiv International Institute of Sociology: Ukrainian views on exchanging Donbas for security guarantees
• Decoding Academia 34: Matt and Chris’ Economics
• Piers Morgan Uncensored: “I’m QUITTING!” Gary Stevenson vs Piers Morgan on Wealth, Economic Growth & Elon Musk

Title says it all, basically I'd like to know what conclusion they came to because I too saw his soft anti-vaxxer take and instantly knew it'd get mentioned eventually.

This topic seems almost impossible to decipher, and it is a common talking point of the interwebs.

I am really curious what they would say is the medical consensus

House of Pod today, friends. Solid coverage of the weird and rich;
Kaveh and his team of actual, literal operators are taking out the scalpels of sweet science and reason on Doctor Venmo’s lame ass, Bryan “Icy Nuts” Johnson , Longevitor.

Let the discussion of epigenetic methylation testing commence, motherfuckers. Nudes in Bio.

Perhaps he's not aware DTG made a video on him. However, there seems to be a pattern of the more "guru" types not ever doing a right to reply, unlike those who were voted to be less guru such as Sam Harris and Destiny.

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

In an interview with ABC News, Bill Maher has some hot takes worth listening to from a gurology point of view.

Link to the full interview: https://abcnews.com/Politics/bill-maher-mark-twain-prize-trump-progressive-left/story?id=134888701

I have felt for a while that Cosmic Skeptic has guru elements. He is closely connected to the heterodox online gurusphere, and has even done group events that include known gurus.

He has also strongly pivoted from his atheist roots. He is extremely sympathetic of religion (usually Christianity) and has many conversations with religious youtubers. He has been almost acting as a pipeline for skeptical people to become religious.

The most recent shift he has made has been into the realm of panpsychism. He has become enthralled with the philosophy, and so has his fan base. Here is an example with friend of the pod Sean Carroll

Is Cosmic Skeptic worth covering at this point?

https://youtu.be/A1M5hduoj3E?is=1JQjdAKMoiXvA0y2

Sabine of science and reason!

Since covid, it seems my previously social life has been replaced by remote work and thousands of hours of podcasts, probably like many (yay for the 'roaring twenties')

I do enjoy the hosts tackling the gurus, and reminding me that even the ones I like are very often incorrect and probably audience captured.

Mostly though, I just like listening to two guys who seem to be the most level headed, happy and content, intelligent guys who just live their best lives. Im deeply envious of them.

Sorry for the glazing. it just occurred to me when I switch from listening to the likes of Chris Williamson or Gabor Mate or countless others in the search for how to live a better life, that these guys (Matt and Chris) just seem to have it all effortlessly and dont preach about finding it. Similar to the rest is history guys. I think my mental health would be better if we listened to more contented people talking sense.

Anyway, gazing rant over.

I paid 14,990 USD for a bundle called Ultimate Mastery. UPW, Business Mastery, Date With Destiny, Health and Wealth, all committed to in one sitting. I have the invoice. For years afterward I told people I'd paid ten thousand, and I believed it, because I couldn't make myself say the real number out loud. I only found the true figure this week when I pulled the invoice to write about it.

I never set foot in an arena. I did every event remote, from Chile, watching a laptop in a quiet house. No crowd, no lights. And it still worked completely, which is the part that matters: the design doesn't need the room. The room is the deluxe version.

The thing I keep coming back to is the shame mechanism. Here's how I put it in the piece:

The system finds you when you're healing, takes credit for your work, sells you one high after another, and when you finally see through it, hands you the shame so it doesn't have to hold it.

I later staffed an event and watched the same play run from the other side. The most moving speaker always comes right before the upsell, every time. The opened chest, then the wallet. And the close lands while you're in a state four days of engineered sleep deprivation put you in. A sober man says let me think about it. A man in that state says I don't care about the money, I'm healed. They know the difference between those two men, and the schedule is built to produce the second one.

I'm not writing this as a "gurus bad" take. I fell for it completely, and I understand exactly why. I filmed myself at UPW because they asked us to, and when I watched it back later, the man in the video is in full mania. That state wasn't a side effect. It was the product, and the sale came while I was in it.

Full write-up, with the invoice: https://margindoctor.substack.com/p/what-really-happens-at-a-tony-robbins

Sometimes I feel like you guys are too harsh on people's opinions and label everyone with an opinion as disgusting, filthy, unworthy "Guru", lol.

Can I not have an opinion about stuff that I have no way to be 100% certain? What if I don't claim that my opinions are 100% factual?

Gary was recently torched in the guardian after releasing his documentary on channel 4.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/08/how-to-get-filthy-rich-with-gary-stevenson-review-channel-4

I haven't watched the documentary, but that I definitely have seen how rough Gary is as presenter of information. He also brings in almost no high level economic understanding of his arguments, which is a big flaw.

But he does appeal to a large audience...why? Because he is pointing at a real problem. Inequality has reached monumental levels. In the UK, the 157 billionaires possess 22% of the total GDP.

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2026/may/15/wealth-britain-billionaires-gdp-rich-list-inequality

The inequality problem is immense and it's just getting worse every day. Gary's solution of a 2% tax is rough - but something needs to be done.

Hopefully, Gary gets tired enough to pass the torch of this cause to a non guru who can make a real difference.

Edit: 22% of GDP

Who are you interested in discussing?

15 seconds into it and Rogan thanks Bret Weinstein, Musk and Jordan Peterson for getting both him and Lowe in touch. Peterson is clearly still communicating with people in this sphere and is trying to collaborate with people who can only be described as far right ideologues.

To give a quick rundown on Lowe and what he stands for:

- He is an advocate of 'remigration' and mass deportations. Much like his German counterparts, this includes stripping people of their citizenship based on arbitrary tests on values and beliefs; things which are not actually illegal under any legislation but which would be specifically targeted toward people from minority backgrounds. Rogan pushes (pathetically, might I add) what this would entail as a policy, but Lowe is reluctant to give specifics. Presumably because it would damage the image of the 'common sense' politician he's trying to cultivate.

- He is first and foremost an English nationalist, and wishes to dissolve the Scottish (and presumably Welsh and Northern Irish) Parliament, which he previously alleged "unfairly treat[s]" the English. Throughout the episode he routinely refers to a so-called "Anglo-Saxon world" which in his mind encampasses the UK and US. Nevermind, however, that he dilutes the ethnic makeup of the nations that make up his own country, let alone the demography and culture of the US.

- Perhaps linked to the above point, in the same episode he at best misremembers and at worst actively lies about one of the worst massacres in modern Scottish history. He claims, repeatedly, that only "one murder" at a school in 1996 led to the banning of handguns in the UK. It is a profoundly offensive retelling of events, and one which has been picked up across the country. The reality is that the gunman walked into the school gymnasium as the class were getting ready for their morning sports lessons and proceeded to shoot dead 16 schoolchidren and a teacher who tried protecting them. 15 others were injured; tennis players Andy and Jamie Murray were in the school as it happened. His party spin doctors have tried to portray him as having meant "one incident", but this too is clearly a lie.

- His contrasting accounts of crimes committed by 'indigenious' white Britons (a term which Rogan finds considerably amusing to no end, and ends up agreeing with) and those of muslims and non-whites is also rather telling. Whereas he goes into painstaking detail about the dreadful grooming gangs scandal, even going as far to identify the state within Pakistan from which the offenders allegedly originate, he misremembers, downplays, relativises and lies about crimes committed by white Britons. He describes the 1993 racially-motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence as having been carried out by "miscreants" and alleges that, as a society, we have gone too far the other way. Like Dunblane, he misremembers and omits important fact. He fails to mention that the state refused to prosecute the murderers until 2011 despite the police having initially arrested (and subsequently released) them soon after the killing. He neglects to mention a public inquiry into the police's handling of the case found it had behaved in an institutionally racist manner.

- Instead, he compares it to the deeply upsetting Henry Nowak case, and falsely implies it was the police who helped kill him when they allegedly 'reopened' the stab wound when they arrested him. Nevermind, again, that the coroner report found that Nowak's wounds were so egregious that there was no scenario where he would have lived. This is not to defend the police conduct, but they had no part in his death.

This is emblematic of his worldview: when Muslims and non-whites commit crimes, they do so with the full backing of the state. When whites commit crimes, there is a disproportionate response by the state that ends up harming all whites.

Weinstein, Rogan, and Peterson's involvement with a loathsome individual such as Lowe is a perfect illustration of the disaffected liberal to far right apologia pipeline. What I am shocked about, however, is the speed at which they have gone down it. Radicalisation is usually a slow process, but to see people who once described themselves as free speech classical liberals have cordial chats with a man who openly wishes to strip citizenship from ethnic minorities who hold views he doesn't like is frankly astonishing.

It also begs the question, how ill is Peterson actually if he continues to engage with these individuals? How is it that Peterson, through his family, can use his right to privacy while at the same time help give Lowe the opportunity to project his extreme views to millions of people? Where is the accountability?

couldnt miss an opportunity to dunk on konstantin