A psychologist and an anthropologist try to make sense of the world's greatest self-declared Gurus.
We crawl around the dark crevices of the internet so you don't have to. And what wonders we have to show you...
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1 hour, 34 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 43
00:00 Introduction and Banter Allotment
01:23 The Hypocrisy of the Defenders of Western Civilisation
10:07 An Optimistic Take?
17:02 Scott Adams' Controversial Legacy
18:43 Scott Alexander's Rationalist Eulogy for Scott Adams
32:31 A Final Tribute to Scott Adams
33:43 Andrew Gold's Interview with a Racist
39:02 Fair Play for being a Racist
41:17 Comparing Follower Counts and Audience Makeup
44:40 Racism and Xenophobia Discussion
49:07 Securing the Future of Our People...
01:00:01 LawTubers and Grifting
01:00:48 Legal Mindset
01:06:02 Antifa Woke Women are Hunting Legal Mindset
01:07:41 A man of Christ
01:09:16 A Red-Blooded American
01:12:35 Woke White Women and Antifa Paranoia
01:13:55 Electro Gym Work and Pygmy Hippo Love
01:18:47 Antifa Paranoia
01:26:36 The True Masculine Renegade YouTuber
01:32:32 Concluding Thoughts and Farewell
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We return for Part 2 of our Scott Galloway deep dive, where the vibes remain strong, the confidence unwavering, and the relationship with empirical evidence increasingly… decorative.
Returning to our Modern Wisdom safari, we continue navigating the forbidden terrain of men, masculinity, and male suffering: a topic so dangerous that it requires constant ritual disclaimers, whispered caveats, and the occasional nervous glance around the bar to make sure we can take out the other men if necessary.
We cover Scott's outline of his masculine Third Way: rejecting both the Right’s “Bring Back the Fifties” masculinity and the Left’s “Men Are the Problem” framework, in favour of a solution that might be described as Stern Dad Who’s Also Nice About It. Prepare to thrill at proposals of mandatory national service, kindness as a masculine superpower, and the radical idea that young people might benefit from not being economically crushed.
Things get spicier when we’re told what women really want and learn about the adaptive skill check of the female orgasm. Chris Williamson unveils a prepared essay on What Men Want which proves to be a moving piece of therapeutic slam poetry that somehow manages to combine manosphere grievance mongering with woke therapy talk. We learn how what men really just want to be told is “you are enough" and should be kind for kindness sake, but also should optimise their friend group such that they can properly signal their high mate quality and train hard enough to take out all other males in the bar.
Finally, we hit peak Decoding Mode as Scott’s statistics begin to escalate: boys are ten times more likely to kill themselves, father absence turns sons into inmates, daughters into promiscuous approval-seekers, and nearly every claim is delivered with total confidence and minimal concern for effect sizes, confounds, or whether the study actually exists. Decorative scholarship is in full bloom.
We do our best as two hyper-masculine men to separate reasonable concerns about boys, mentorship, and social policy from hyperbolic factoids, pop-psych inflation, and the familiar habit of smuggling moral arguments in under the banner of “what the science says.”
Bring your hunting knife and stoic daily diary. Take your testosterone injection. And get ready for some man talk!
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We dig deep into the online world to DO OUR OWN RESEARCH and return with horrors never dreamt of by man.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1 hour, 23 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 42
00:00 Introduction
11:13 Rogan and Shane Gillis on Nick Fuentes vs Piers Morgan
17:49 Jimmy Carr's Physics Insights
24:00 The comedian shuffle
25:12 Andrew Huberman teams up with Goop!
30:41 Huberman injects his dog with testosterone.
32:09 Bryan Johnson and the secret longevity of the penis
35:41 The Science Behind Huberman's Careful Product Endorsements
39:48 The Statistics of Home Alone
41:22 Bryan Johnson's Love Tweet
46:24 Bryan Johnson's horrible treatment of his ex-fiancée
51:30 Andrea Botez and Influencer Health Research
57:41 Bespoke Treatments with Medical AIs
01:04:28 Self-Research, Stock Picking, and Gambling
01:07:47 Health Systems and their imperfections
01:12:37 Doing Your Own Research...
01:17:38 Matt's Content Recommendations
01:20:45 Outro
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We return to the podcast circuit in 2026 to examine Scott Galloway: NYU professor, prolific podcaster, and, more recently, part-time life coach for struggling young men.
Joining him on an episode of Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson, we are invited into one of the few remaining forbidden conversational spaces: men, masculinity, and men’s problems. You may have been misled by the relentless popularity of Joe Rogan, Modern Wisdom, The Tucker Carlson Show, Triggernometry, The Diary of a CEO, Huberman Lab, and several dozen adjacent properties into thinking these topics are already discussed at length on a near-weekly basis. Alas, this turns out to be a dangerous illusion.
In reality, even mentioning men’s issues requires an extended ritual acknowledgement of women, failure to perform which risks immediate cancellation. Braving these cultural headwinds, we wade into manly dialogue about masculinity, sex differences, and male malaise. Along the way, we ponder the intricacies of culture war evolutionary psychology, anthropological wars over Man the Hunter, optimised dosages for manly whingeing, and whether making boys learn French verb conjugations qualifies as a human rights abuse.
So get your notebooks ready for some important notes from two of the most masculine men in the modern male podcasting space. Men...
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In this festive descent into methodological despair, Chris and Matt convene a secret cabal of elite psychology podcasters within the Decoding Cloister, operating under the distant yet reassuring gaze of Arch-Wizard Paul Bloom, whose role is largely ceremonial but nonetheless morally binding.
Joining them are Dave Pizarro (Very Bad Wizards) and Michael Inzlicht (Two Psychologists Four Beers, emeritus), for what can only be described as an end-of-year audit of social psychology’s moral character.
What follows is a mixture of intense hubris, disciplinary self-loathing, and revolutionary insights, delivered via one of the most sadistic Christmas quizzes ever devised. The quiz format allows the episode to do what psychology does best: create the feeling of measurement while hovering dangerously close to intuition.
Alongside the quiz, we engage in some meta-commentary and sensemaking reflections on audience capture and the state of psychology-themed podcasts in 2025. In other words, it’s Christmas, so naturally everyone is discussing perverse incentives, damaged reputations, and the slow moral corrosion of institutions.
So join us, won’t you? For the first International Congress on Psychology-Themed Podcasting and Gurus…
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References
In this special Christmas episode, Helen’s annual Guru Quiz returns, lightly dusted with Trump, podcast tours, and the unsettling realisation that the Guru-sphere and the MAGA-sphere have quietly fused into a single, monetised, vibes-based organism.
That's right, the regular decoding team are joined by renowned journalist, author, podcaster... and occasional DTG quiz master, Helen Lewis, who once again brings her festive cheer, an uncanny ability to identify exactly who will be unbearable next year, and a quiz designed to torture Matt.
Points are awarded, dignity is lost, and Matt briefly considers revising for the quiz before remembering that preparation has never helped him before.
The episode also covers MAGA and UK political manoeuvres, the movers and shakers of the Gurusphere in 2025, and a lament for the collapse of the ancient boundary between editorial content and hawking pants.
So join us for a festive episode about gurus, geniuses, authoritarian comedy festivals, and the slow erosion of shame. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night... and that includes you, Bubbles!
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In this tragic episode, we pay tribute to a fallen comrade and honour his memory with a discussion of a melange of truly terrible people, some of whom are much worse than others.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 33 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 41
00:00 Introduction and Swimming Update
02:34 The Tragic Tale of Old Squeaky
09:01 Sam Harris interpersonal bias & Megyn Kelly
26:05 Gary Stevenson vs Rory Stewart
36:26 Master Certificates and Jaffa Cakes
41:59 Dasha's Nick Fuentes Problem
50:08 Nick Fuentes' Racist Remarks
54:29 Piers Morgan vs. Nick Fuentes
59:08 The Two Nick Fuentes Personas
01:02:39 Father Issues
01:20:51 Nick Fuentes the Racist
01:30:36 Piers Lab Leak Ad Break
01:32:52 Antisemitism and Holocaust Denialism
01:45:25 IDW Style Credulity and Holocaust Denialism
01:48:12 Hitler was really f**king cool?
01:58:20 Blustering Boomer Outrage vs. Online Groyperism
02:02:09 Debating Misogyny and Extremism
02:12:54 Piers Take on Fuentes
02:17:11 Overall thoughts on Piers Morgan vs Nick Fuentes
02:20:15 Infighting on the Conspiratorial Right
02:25:13 Bret Weinstein's Powers of Prediction: Trump on Rob Reiner
02:30:29 Outro
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In this unlocked bonus episode, Chris and Matt complete their forensic/esoteric/scientific assessment of the charming Stefan Molyneux, consigning him (sadly) to the eternal archives of the Gurometer.
Cult Season continues, and much like Stefan himself, you may have hoped this would go away after Part 1. Unfortunately, like all persistent internet hauntings, Molyneux has returned. And this time, Chris and Matt venture even deeper into the Moly-Hole, a place where truth is redefined, callers are slowly gaslit into existential confusion, and every philosophical insight is served with the overwhelming scent of narcissism and emotional manipulation.
We return to the joyful world of Stefan’s caller-domination rituals, courtesy of Twitter Spaces, where he continues his life’s work of berating strangers and stroking his own ego while insisting he alone possesses the True Meaning of Truth.
Listeners can thrill to the culmination of the Truth Call™ from Part 1, where the philosophically inclined young father is sucked further into Stefan’s epistemological meat grinder as Stefan tries to uncover the imaginary psychoanalytic roots of the caller’s ongoing defiance. From there, we are introduced to Caller No. 3 for just a sprinkling of the patented victim-blaming and misogyny of the Molyneux Method.
Finally, Chris and Matt offer their overall thoughts on Molyneux’s long and illustrious career as an internet arsehole. They conclude that while Stefan has managed to cycle through platforms, ideologies, and degrees of baldness, he has maintained absolute fidelity to the same psychological tactics—gaslighting, projection, undermining, hypocrisy, and the uncanny ability to make even a throwaway joke feel incredibly creepy.
So that’s it for now… collectively we can escape the Moly-Hole, carefully sealing the tunnel entrance as we leave. And let’s pray this is the last time anyone has to think about good ol’ Stefan.
Aside from that… Cult Season continues. Abandon hope, etc.
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We set down the Chardonnay at the latest heterodox dinner party and lean in for some hearty ‘civil discourse’ to once again defend the trembling pillars of Western civilization.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 13 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 40: YouTube Builders, the Discourse Grind, and Sam Harris' Dinner Parties
00:00 Introduction
01:15 Feedback on the Molyneux Episode
10:26 Jordan Peterson still defeated by toxic demon mould
12:16 Steven Pinker's bad takes on Bjorn Lomborg
15:49 Chris vs Sabine
28:21 Grok's insane sycophantic glazing of Elon Musk
33:54 Musk's Psychology
40:59 Sam Harris acknowledges his problem?!?
47:18 Sam continues to wrestle with the interpersonal ethics of criticism
01:05:10 Triggernometry saves Western Civilization
01:15:29 The Wisdom of Francis Foster
01:28:42 Triggernometry's Partisan Outrage at the BBC
01:38:12 Oppressed Men vs. Complaining Women
01:46:29 The YouTube Builders of Western Civilization
01:56:42 Pageau vs Bret Weinstein
02:01:52 Eric Weinstein sensemaking about Cancellation
02:09:58 A PSA about THIS podcast
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Welcome back to Cult Season, where we continue our sincere attempt to make you feel a little bit worse about the world and everything in it.
This week, we turn to Stefan Molyneux, online pioneer, prolific content creator, and self-proclaimed most popular philosopher in the world. Alternatively his wikipedia entry describes him as "an Irish-born Canadian white nationalist podcaster and proponent of conspiracy theories, white supremacy, scientific racism, and the men's rights movement." Charming...
One thing is for sure: Molyneux is the only man alive who can turn literally any question into a monologue that combines demonic liberals, cutting off friends and family, and female reproductive choices. A true Renaissance man for people who hate Renaissance values.
In this first episode we take a brief tour through the Molyneux Expanded Universe™, which includes some infamous clips from his early days as the creator of an online 'philosophy' cult themed around anti-spanking, anarcho-capitalism, and misogyny. We also cover his pivot to MAGA apologetics and overt white nationalism and finally to late-stage Molyneux, where he now lurks in Twitter Spaces, berating callers and insisting the world is populated by demon-ridden NPCs gleefully urinating on their moral superiors.
Look forward to learning about his extensive rhetorical techniques, which include thin-skinned narcissism, a penchant for violent metaphors usually featuring urine and anal torture, his constant demand that listeners cut off their families and, of course, his favourite claim: that anyone who disagrees with him is a man-whore NPC who wants to kill you.
Also featuring:
If you’ve ever wanted to hear a preening narcissist berate his listener for raising entirely reasonable points... well, this is the episode for you.
Scott Adams should be careful, a new contender has emerged for his crown...
Part 2 coming soon, assuming we survive this one.
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