Decoding the Gurus By cover art

Decoding the Gurus

By: Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
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  • Summary

  • An exiled Northern Irish anthropologist and a hitchhiking Australian psychologist take a close look at the contemporary crop of 'secular gurus', iconoclasts, and other exiles from the mainstream, offering their own brands of unique takes and special insights. Leveraging two of the most diverse accents in modern podcasting, Chris and Matt dig deep into the claims, peek behind the psychological curtains, and try to figure out once and for all... What's it all About? Join us, as we try to puzzle our way through and talk some smart-sounding smack about the intellectual giants of our age, from Jordan Peterson to Robin DiAngelo. Are they revolutionary thinkers or just grifters with delusions of grandeur? Join us and let's find out!
    Copyright 2024 Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
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Episodes
  • Supplementary Material 4: Passive Aggressive Therapists, Shit-posting Monks, and Weaponised Naivety

    Supplementary Material 4: Passive Aggressive Therapists, Shit-posting Monks, and Weaponised Naivety
    Apr 13 2024

    We ponder whether, due to our naivety, do we actually deserve the gurus and other topics, including:

    • Is Hasan Piker even better than we said?
    • The ethical quandaries of online therapy with Dr. K
    • The False Halos of Status and Success
    • The Rest is History Luther series and parallels with Secular Gurus
    • The Power of Polemicists: Peterson, Trump, and Martin Luther?
    • Secular vs. Religious Gurus
    • Shit-posting Missives
    • Orthodoxic Atheism and Orthopraxic Religion
    • Lex Fridman's Reflections on Intellectual Humility
    • Some important Messages from the hosts

    Links

    • Game Rant Article about Hasan Piker's donation to Strike Funds
    • Uncovering the Higher Truth about Jay Shetty by John McDermott
    • Coffeezilla Interview with John McDermott
    • Dr. K and Doctor Mike: Debating The Value Of Eastern Medicine (Ayurveda)
    • That stream with Dr. K and his wife
    • The Rest is History: Series on Martin Luther
    • Article by Chris in Aeon about Orthopraxic Religion
    • Lex's extremely humble tweet about his intellectual humility

    The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hr 19mins).

    Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
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    36 mins
  • Yuval Noah Harari: Eat Bugs and Live Forever

    Yuval Noah Harari: Eat Bugs and Live Forever
    Apr 5 2024

    Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, a writer, and a popular 'public intellectual'. He rose to fame with Sapiens (2014), his popular science book that sought to outline a 'History of Humankind' and followed this up with a more future-focused sequel, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016). More recently, he's been converting his insights into a format targeted at younger people with Unstoppable Us: How Humans Took Over the World (2022). In general, Harari is a go-to public intellectual for people looking for big ideas, thoughts on global events, and how we might avoid catastrophe. He has been a consistent figure on the interview and public lecture circuit and, with his secular message, seems an ideal candidate for Gurometeratical analysis.

    Harari also has some alter egos. He is a high-ranking villain in the globalist pantheon for InfoWars-style conspiracy theorists, with plans that involve us all eating bugs and uploading our consciousness to the Matrix. Alternatively, for (some) historians and philosophers, he is a shallow pretender, peddling inaccurate summaries of complex histories and tricky philosophical insights. For others, he is a neoliberal avatar offering apologetics for exploitative capitalist and multinational bodies.

    So, who is right? Is he a bug-obsessed villain plotting to steal our precious human souls or a mild-mannered academic promoting the values of meditation, historical research, and moderation?

    Join Matt and Chris in this episode to find out and learn other important things, such as what vampires should spend their time doing, whether money is 'real', and how to respond respectfully to critical feedback.

    Links

    • The Diary of a CEO: Yuval Noah Harari: An Urgent Warning They Hope You Ignore. More War Is Coming!
    • Our previous episode on Yuval and the Angry Philosophers
    • Current Affairs: The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari (a little overly dramatic)
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    2 hrs and 17 mins
  • Supplementary Material 3: Sand-worms, Anti-Capitalist Merch, and High Level Idea-Jacking

    Supplementary Material 3: Sand-worms, Anti-Capitalist Merch, and High Level Idea-Jacking
    Mar 31 2024

    We test the boundaries of the Supplementary format with a stacked third edition containing:

    • Matt's Review of Dune 2 and the Three-Body Problem
    • Hasan Piker's Anti-Capitalist Merch
    • The Controversy Surrounding Andrew Huberman
    • Differential Charity and Selective Decoupling
    • Grace before meals at Triggernometry and Christian Hipsterism
    • Jordan and Bret's Pseudoacademic-ese
    • High-Level Idea Jacking
    • Dream Instructions

    Links

    • Hasan Piker's Ideologie Store
    • New York Magazine: Andrew Huberman's Mechanisms of Control
    • Slate: So, Should You Trust Andrew Huberman?
    • The Darien Gap & Postmodernism | Bret Weinstein & Jordan Peterson | EP 434
    • Triggernometry: Can We Live Without Religion? - Alex O'Connor
    • Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive

    The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hr 33mins).

    Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
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    52 mins
Social Sciences Science
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Thurough assessments

Wonderfully entertaining and insightful, as well as excessively verbose!
I adore the conversations.
I also appreciate not having to do my own research.

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A much needed podcast in the age of gurus.

Chris and Matt are carrying hammers trying to Whack-A-Mole all the gurus coming out of their misinformed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, conspiratorial podcast holes. The hosts are approaching the topics in good faith. If you are interested in understanding how gurus build their cult-like following, and the techniques they use to manipulate their listeners, then the boys have you covered. The main critique I have for the podcast is that it's a tad bit too long at times. If you don't find the topics interesting, they have funny accents.

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Toxic bigotted juveniles must be muted

Two ignorant rambling researchers think its hilarious to treat serious issues like gender dysphoria with toxic and immature mockery. What right do they have to causually cissplain (with a known transphobic Helen Lewis) anything to anyone? Do they realise what it's like to grow up confused about identity. Do they talk about the mental and physical abuse perpetrated by others on the LGBTQIA+ community or the unacceptable suicide rates? No. They just compare fighting for human decency and rights of every individual to the despicable orthodoxy of churches that believe in superbeings who created the earth and let all their disciples get away with pedophilia! They just pretend they are objective because their whole life has revolved around an insecure, fragile, colonial biased paradigm. Brainwashed and self-delusional. They think they are objective because they mock those hate crime mongers from the IDW. That childish sarcasm and laughter when talking about Peterson and the ilk, and then that vomit inducing feeling sorry/not sorry for being 'meanies' is nothing more than acting as apologists for those criminal misogynists and supporting hate speech. Barely able to listen to an older one on Ibram X Kendi but it is obvious they have a major issue with critical race theory, anti-racism and the BLM movement. I will issue a formal complaint about this podcast and hope you will do the same.

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