Decoding the Gurus

This week we return one more time to the disturbing world of Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, also known as the 'Moonies', this time with a historical decoding episode.We are joined again this week by Elgen Strait, from Falling Out podcast, who helps us with a historical decoding of Reverend Moon's speeches and Moonie promotional material.Due to the subject matter we cannot promise a barrel of laughs but we hope this episode offers some useful insights into the approach of a genuine cult leader. It's also a useful comparison episode to see where there are parallels with the modern secular gurus we usually examine and where they diverge.So join us as we return to an imagined glory era of America in the 1950s (or was it 70s) when Absolute Sex & a God centred ideology was all anyone needed for a perfect society... at least according to Moon. LinksFalling Out PodcastSun Myung Moon: God Bless America Festival (1976) Rare Complete Bicentennial Documentary & We will Stand. Rev. Sun Myung Moon QAnon Anonymous 160: The Moonies Conquer DC feat Elgen StraitArticle on Trump's appearance at Unification Church linked eventJordan Peterson speaking with Andy Ngo about Antifa

This episode is the first of two linked episodes in which we delve into the disturbing world of Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church also known as the 'Moonies'.Here in an interview episode we introduce Elgen Strait, host of the Falling Out Podcast which is "a podcast about leaving the Moonies and other cults, as told by the kids who grew up within them." The topic matter is serious and Elgen deftly introduces us to the manipulative cult dynamics he experienced first hand, as well as offering some broader information about how the Moonies craft their public image and raise funds.However, Elgen is a man after our own hearts and his dark sense of humour means that he can also enjoy a laugh at Moon's expense & enlighten us about Absolute Sex(!), a term that might mean something slightly different than you imagine.Our next episode will be guest co-hosted by Elgen as we take an excursion from the contemporary secular gurus and attempt to decode some historical recordings from a bonafide religious cult leader.This episode hopefully provides the foundations to better understand that decoding and we hope you 'enjoy' the discussion with Elgen as much as we did, despite the subject matter!LinksFalling Out PodcastSun Myung Moon: God Bless America Festival (1976) Rare Complete Bicentennial Documentary & We will Stand. Rev. Sun Myung Moon(content for the decoding episode)QAnon Anonymous 160: The Moonies Conquer DC feat Elgen StraitArticle on Trump's appearance at Unification Church linked eventPodcast RecommendationsWhen Diplomacy FailsMonocle 24: Foreign DeskWar on the Rocks

Another interview episode - we've had a flurry recently but don't worry, we'll be returning to a good ol' fashioned decoding episode very soon. This week we just couldn't resist the opportunity to have a chinwag with our podcasting compadre Julian Walker, an eloquent writer on evidence-based & conspiracy matters and co-host of the Conspirituality podcast. Julian's a yoga instructor and (maybe even) a spiritual kinda guy, but has long opposed the conspiratorial, anti-science, and exploitative guru side of the yoga & 'health & wellness' communities. In short, he's a science-minded guy moving in spiritual and yoga circles, who is now directly involved in countering the endless proliferation of pseudoscientific & conspiratorial nonsense. So, Matt and Chris take this opportunity to pick Julian's brain about what's been going on over on the crunchy side of the aisle, how it relates (and even overlaps) with the secular gurus, and the cultural moment we're in more generally. Due to the backlog caused by lazy elves in the DTG editing bay, some of the references to the trucker convoy and whatnot are a bit outdated, nor will you hear any mention of Ukraine. But don't mind that! Julian's got a lot of insight to offer and we hope you enjoy listening to him as much as we did!LinksConspirituality 90: The Convoy is an Occupation (w/ Elizabeth Simons). More detailed analysis of the Trucker ConvoyConspirituality 95: Aleksandr Dugin: Kali Yuga Chess. A recent episode by Julian doing a deep dive on Putin's alleged guru.

Hot on the heels of our Joe Rogan Trilogy, the big red phone at Decoder HQ rang with an intriguing proposal. Well, it was more of a DM, and it said,"Hi, love your show, would love to come on talk about Joe. Josh Szeps"."Josh Szeps?" we thought. "Who's that?" 5 mins of internet research later we found out it was none other than the voice of Olly the Kookaburra at the 2000 Sydney games! Well, we have to have him on, we thought. And as a bonus, he's also been on the Joe Rogan Experience where he famously gave him some real talk about COVID, vaccines, and the relative threat of myocarditis. In so doing Josh become, for a while at least, something of a reluctant hero to Joe Rogan cancel mobs everywhere."Book him!" intoned Matt, decisively."Right you are sir!" chirped Chris, obsequiously.Recollections of the specific events differ, but essentially just like that, podcast interview history was made.Josh Szepps has been an ABC journalist, panelist, TV and radio host, raconteur, and general opinionated and interviewer in Australia for donkey's years. He also has his own podcast, (Impossible) sorry Uncomfortable Conversations, which some say is pretty, pretty OK. Matt's been listening to him for years on the radio, so he tried not to be star-struck. While Josh managed (some would say too easily) to conceal his awe of Matt's towering intellect and impressive academic achievements. Chris meanwhile, knowing nothing of Australian culture and etiquette waffled on with his usual wild abandon.The conversation does include chat about the shiny-headed, supplement-infused, muscle master himself, but (fortunately) soon turns to broader discussion of disinformation, censorship, responsible heterodoxy, the general health of the info-sphere, and many, many more topics crucial to Saving our Civilisation! We argue constructively debate many topics including the impact of deplatforming and whether there is a need for greater editorial oversight (or if we are taking the first step to the Gulags). We don't see eye to eye on everything, but Josh is a super cool guy so enjoy some civility porn as we engage in the kind of debate that would make even the IDW superstars proud.Check it out!LinksUncomfortable Conversation with Josh Szeps'The Facts about Myocarditis' On Afternoons with Josh SzepsJosh on TwitterThe CDC requirements for certifying deaths as due to Covid The Joe Rogan Experience #1762 - Josh Szeps on SpotifyThe Fifth Column: 348 w/ Matt Taibbi "Richard Perle in New Jersey, Putin in Hell, Ukraine in Crisis"Clip from James Lindsay on Dr. PhilThis Week's SponsorCheck out the sponsor of this week's episode, Ground News, and get the app at ground.news/gurus.

This is an important episode. 2022 you needs to realise what 2020 you could not and what 2030 you is ready to tell you. Confused? You will be.On this episode we tackle two gurus that we have treated separately: James Lindsay of New Discourses (episode 2) and Michael O'Fallon of Sovereign Nations (episode 13). O'Fallon hasn't changed much from our episode analysing him, aside from starting a conspiracy laden daily news show. But James... well... judge for yourself.On this episode you will learn many amazing facts, including how feminist glaciology is at the core of the Great Reset, that the NFL is now the Critical Race Football league, and how what 'it' is really all about is making people into pets who are driven by AI cars and eat bugs.For this excursion, Chris and Matt are joined for the second time by Aaron Rabinowtiz, host of Embrace the Void (@ETVPod) and Philosophers in Space podcasts, PhD student, and lecturer at Rutgers University. This means we have now had two back to back episodes with philosophers... and we really can't apologise enough.LinksBen Garrison's cartoon featuring Scott AdamsSovereign Nations' Public Occurrences | Episode 7 | Woke NFLSovereign Nations' Public Occurrences | Episode 10 | Obedience TrainingClimate Justice | James Lindsay & Michael O'Fallon | Changing Tides Ep. 1A Critical Reset | James Lindsay & Michael O'Fallon | Changing Tides Ep. 2New Discourses | Groomer Schools 2: Queer Futurity and the Sexual Abuse of Your ChildrenNew Discourses | Groomer Schools 3: The Creation of an American Red GuardThat Immune book by Philipp Dettmer from Gurzgesagt

Today we have a little mid-week treat, ahead of our next decoding episode, a discussion with the philosopher and Leverhulme Prize Winning Twitter sensation, Liam Kofi Bright.Liam is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method at a little known degree-mill called the London School of Economics. On this episode we have a wide ranging discussion revolving around the state of the Orthodoxy in modern scientific research, the viability of proposed reforms, and finally Liam decodes whether we are mindless defenders of the status quo or the true heirs of the Logical Positivists tradition. Along the way we also learn the three rules to master Twitter, what Open Science is all about, whether philosophers of science are good or bad, and what exactly 26+6 equals.LinksChris' appearance on The Stoa discussing the GurometerLiam Bright's websiteLiam's (2016) paper 'On Fraud'Liam's (2021) paper 'Why do Scientists Lie'Remco Hessen & Liam's (2021) paper 'Is peer review a good idea'Liam on TwitterThis Week's SponsorCheck out the sponsor of this week's episode, Ground News, and get the app at ground.news/gurus.

On this week's show we have a broad ranging discussion with the well known journalist and author Virginia Heffernan. Virginia has written a bunch on the topic of technology, social media, scientism, and especially the Edge organisation. We discuss her research into Edge and related figures but also range further afield to cover debates in academia, the culture war and gurus, anthropology debates in the 90s, race & IQ rationalists, and other such topics.One short service note is that Matt is incognito for part of the conversation as he had a prior appointment so you will have to endure Chris functioning on his own but do not fear our intrepid psychologist re-emerges to offer some words of wisdom at the end. Also, the conversation with Virginia was recorded in advance of the events in Ukraine so no recent events are discussed (which is probably for the best).For those who want to do a bit more digging on the topics discussed, below are a bunch of related articles and you can also follow Virginia on Twitter (@page88) and check out her new podcast 'This is Critical' which encourages people to look critically at a wide array of topics, which is quite on brand for us!LinksVirginia's piece on Edge & John BrockmanVirginia's essays on WiredVirginia's Substack piece on Jordan PetersonVirginia's Substack piece on Peter ThielVirginia's WebsiteVirginia's book: Magic & Loss- The Internet as ArtInsider article on the sordid tale of Chris chanTwo articles Chris wrote on his ancient blog about the Captain Cook debate (part 1 and part 2)This Week's SponsorCheck out the sponsor of this week's episode, Ground News, and get the app at ground.news/gurus.

Matt and Chris finally leave the Rogan-verse behind, activate their Infinite Improbability Drive, and blast off for the Bob-o-verse. In an off-again / on-again, will they / won't they battle of wits, we outmanoeuvre Bob by covering an episode that he planned to record for our benefit, which we then explained we wouldn't cover because that would violate our rules, which he decided to record anyway, and we then decided it would be alright to cover because he thought we weren't going to cover it. Which one of us is playing 4-dimensional chess and who's playing Hungry Hippo? We're not sure.Robert Wright is a journalist, author, independent commentator, and podcaster. A stalwart of the public intellectual scene, he never joined the Intellectual Dark Web. How's that for a recommendation!? He's written and thought, or thought and then written about so many topics it's impossible to mention them all, but they span evolution, Buddhism, geopolitics, philosophy, and everything in between. But is he a guru?(Spoiler) Of course he is. Yes, definitely. But is he a good guru? Well, we're not going to tell you. You're going to have to tune in to find out. Chris and Matt are simple folk, but they do their best to wrap their heads around Bob's cosmic philosophy, which spans the fundamental algorithms of evolution, black holes, alternative universes, and how we should probably all be nice to one another if we want to create a global brain. You might think grokking those ideas would be like watching Koyaanisqatsi while tripping on ayahuasca, but actually it all makes sense. We think.But is it true? Is it real? Is Wright right? That my friends, is up to you to decide. But in this episode we will open the door.... (and possibly resolve the mystery of consciousness at the same time, turns out there was no problem all along).Links Timbah on Toast's new video on Tim Pool: Fence SitterKnowledge Fight: Formulaic Objections Part 4The Dharma of Bob 8: A Cosmic View of Our Situation | Robert Wright & Josh Summers | The Wright ShowWhat is Tribalism? Non-Zero NewsletterSponsorCheck out the sponsor of this week's episode, Ground News to compare news coverage. Spot media bias. And be better informed. Download the free Ground News app at ground.news/gurus.CoverartThanks to Mark Ledwich (@mark_ledwich) and Elsa Jansen (@ElsaJansen) for the coverart this week! Contributions for coverart for upcoming episodes always welcome.

This week we speak to fellow traveller, kindred spirit, and vaccine misinformation debunker, Dr Dan Wilson. Yes, we know we've talked SO much about anti-vax rhetoric recently, and we hope the day will soon come when we can leave it all behind us, but friends, today is not that day.For more than a year, Dan's YouTube channel DebunkTheFunk has focused on rebutting COVID and vaccine misinformation from characters such as Geert Vanden-Bossche, Joseph Mercola and RFK Jnr. His recent episodes on Robert Malone and Peter Mc Collough have been an invaluable source for the decoders for our recent episodes. So of course we were delighted that Dan could come speak to us about what he does, what they do, and what kind of rhetorical tropes and tricks he sees from these characters.Dan seems to suffer from the same masochistic malaise we do, in feeling compelled to listen to some of the worst material available on the internet, so as to point out what's wrong with it. And he accomplishes that mission effectively, and most mysteriously for Chris and Matt, concisely as well.It's not all negative, because as well as talking about anti-vaxxers specifically, we all bask in our shared admiration for This Week in Virology, the kind of critical yet open-minded science communication show we'd all love to see a lot more of. We also talk about the kind of everyday epistemics that we can all practice to separate fact from fiction, and the kind of public engagement that genuine experts, researchers and scientists need to practice in order to take back the infosphere from snake-oil salesmen and attention-seekers of all kinds. It was an absolute pleasure to talk to Dan. We love what he does, and we hope he goes on doing it for a long time to come. We hope you enjoy it too, and we heartily recommend sharing DebunkTheFunk with friends, family and colleagues who have slipped down the conspiratorial rabbit-hole on COVID and vaccines.

To cap off our impromptu mini-series focusing on the Rogan-verse we take a critical look at Joe's short (non) apology video responding to the Spotify controversy surrounding his recent episodes with Robert Malone & Peter McCullough.In it we get to see a charming Joe Rogan being humble and compromising, while standing firm to explain why his critics have got him all wrong. He's not some hardline anti-vaccine advocate with an agenda to spread covid misinformation, he's just a normal guy who likes to have interesting conversations and hear from both sides(tm) on controversial topics.Joe's certainly on the charm offensive and he's already won plaudits from the heterodox for doing the right thing but are these really deserved? And how well does what Joe says hold up when you look at it critically? We do what few will bother and compare & contrast how Joe describes what he does vs. what he actually does and says in his content. And we find a few discrepancies that seem worth mentioning.This will be our last dip into the Rogan-verse for the next while but we would encourage anyone who wants more to go back to our episodes on Rogan & Jocko Willink or the combined episode on Robert Malone & Peter McCullough.Whether you are a fan of Rogan or a critic, we hope you can find something useful in our critical evaluation and we will back soon with a full length decoding.LinksJoe Rogan's apology videoDTG: Episode on Robert Malone & Peter McCulloughDTG: Episode on Joe Rogan & Jocko WillinkTimbah on Toast: Tim Pool - Fence SitterArticle by Tristan Flock on what Malone & McCullough have actually said and promotedSpotify's new platform rules on Misinformation