Decoding the 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/DecodingTheGurusSupplementary Material 4300:00 Introduction and Banter Allotment01:23 The Hypocrisy of the Defenders of Western Civilisation10:07 An Optimistic Take?17:02 Scott Adams' Controversial Legacy18:43 Scott Alexander's Rationalist Eulogy for Scott Adams32:31 A Final Tribute to Scott Adams33:43 Andrew Gold's Interview with a Racist39:02 Fair Play for being a Racist41:17 Comparing Follower Counts and Audience Makeup44:40 Racism and Xenophobia Discussion49:07 Securing the Future of Our People...01:00:01 LawTubers and Grifting01:00:48 Legal Mindset01:06:02 Antifa Woke Women are Hunting Legal Mindset01:07:41 A man of Christ01:09:16 A Red-Blooded American01:12:35 Woke White Women and Antifa Paranoia01:13:55 Electro Gym Work and Pygmy Hippo Love01:18:47 Antifa Paranoia01:26:36 The True Masculine Renegade YouTuber01:32:32 Concluding Thoughts and FarewellLinksPeter Boghossian complaining about public attention to the Greenland situationMike Cernovich’s tribute: “Scott is loved because he’s devoted his life to service to humanity”In full: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum (Davos)Scott Alexander’s eulogy to Scott AdamsColeman Hughes on Scott Adams at The Free PressAndrew Gold – Heretics: “I Confront Britain’s Biggest Racist”Liam Tufts: “Would You Let Your Kid Date a Black Person?” | Steve Laws sparks a heated debateLegal Mindset: “Free Kaya, Punish Hasan” (Fast Facts)Rob’s Media: Idiot Influencers – Legal Mindset (Go East channel background)

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!LinksModern Wisdom: The War On Men Isn’t Helping Anyone - Scott GallowayThe Diary of a CEO: Scott Galloway: We’re Raising The Most Unhappy Generation In History! Hard Work Doesn't Build WealthAcademic papers/Sources ReferencedCulpin, I., Heuvelman, H., Rai, D., Pearson, R. M., Joinson, C., Heron, J., … Kwong, A. S. F. (2022). Father absence and trajectories of offspring mental health across adolescence and young adulthood: Findings from a UK-birth cohort. Journal of Affective Disorders, 314, 150–159.Dekker, M. C., Ferdinand, R. F., van Lang, N. D. J., Bongers, I. L., van der Ende, J., & Verhulst, F. C. (2007). Developmental trajectories of depressive symptoms from early childhood to late adolescence: Gender differences and adult outcome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(7), 657–666.Angelakis, I., Austin, J. L., & Gooding, P. (2020). Association of childhood maltreatment with suicide behaviors among young people: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA network open, 3(8), e2012563-e2012563.Zhang, L., Wang, P., Liu, L., Wu, X., & Wang, W. (2026). Different roles of child abuse and neglect on emerging adult's nonsuicidal self-injury and suicidal ideation: sex difference through emotion regulation. Current Psychology, 45(1), 56.Callanan, V. J., & Davis, M. S. (2012). Gender differences in suicide methods. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 47(6), 857-869.Raposa, E. B., Rhodes, J., Stams, G. J. J. M., Card, N., Burton, S., Schwartz, S., … Hussain, S. (2019). The effects of youth mentoring programs: A meta-analysis of outcome studies. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 48(3), 423–443. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-00982-8Lloyd, E. A. (2005). The case of the female orgasm: Bias in the science of evolution. Harvard University Press.King, R. (2024). Naturally Selective: Evolution, Orgasm, and Female Choice. CRC Press. (The researcher Chris Williamson is relying on)The Scottish Sun. (2025, February 17). Nearly six pubs closed each week last year with 4,500 jobs lost amid rising costs [News article]. The Scottish Sun. Retrieved from https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/money/14352624/uk-pubs-closed-last-year/Greater London Authority. (2025, February). London’s Night-Time Economy: Economy, Culture and Skills Committee report. Greater London Authority. 

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/DecodingTheGurusSupplementary Material 4200:00 Introduction11:13 Rogan and Shane Gillis on Nick Fuentes vs Piers Morgan17:49 Jimmy Carr's Physics Insights24:00 The comedian shuffle25:12 Andrew Huberman teams up with Goop!30:41 Huberman injects his dog with testosterone.32:09 Bryan Johnson and the secret longevity of the penis35:41 The Science Behind Huberman's Careful Product Endorsements39:48 The Statistics of Home Alone41:22 Bryan Johnson's Love Tweet46:24 Bryan Johnson's horrible treatment of his ex-fiancée51:30 Andrea Botez and Influencer Health Research57:41 Bespoke Treatments with Medical AIs01:04:28 Self-Research, Stock Picking, and Gambling01:07:47 Health Systems and their imperfections01:12:37 Doing Your Own Research...01:17:38 Matt's Content Recommendations01:20:45 OutroLinksNYT – How Trump Fixed On a Maduro Loyalist as Venezuela’s New LeaderTriggernometry – “A Revolution is Coming!” – Jimmy CarrGQ – How Andrew Huberman, Goop Kitchen Collaborator, Is Staying Healthy in 2026Vanity Fair – Why Bryan Johnson, Dave Asprey, and the Other Longevity Bros Are Obsessed With PenisesLuis Batalha – Tweet on the “Home Alone” paperBryan Johnson – “Love” tweetAndrea Botez – Hearing Loss Update (YouTube)Substack – The Truth About Bryan Johnson (treatment of ex-fiancée)

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...LinksModern Wisdom: The War On Men Isn’t Helping Anyone - Scott GallowayThe Diary of a CEO: Scott Galloway: We’re Raising The Most Unhappy Generation In History! Hard Work Doesn't Build WealthAcademic papers ReferencedChanges in gender-based hiring bias (large meta-analysis): Schaerer, M., Du Plessis, C., Nguyen, M. H. B., Van Aert, R. C., Tiokhin, L., Lakens, D., … Gender Audits Forecasting Collaboration. (2023). On the trajectory of discrimination: A meta-analysis and forecasting survey capturing 44 years of field experiments on gender and hiring decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 179, 104280.Epidemiology of alcohol use disorder by marital status (US, NESARC-III): Grant, B. F., Goldstein, R. B., Saha, T. D., et al. (2015). Epidemiology of DSM-5 Alcohol Use Disorder: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions III. JAMA Psychiatry, 72(8), 757–766.Protective effects of marriage on life expectancy (US Medicare sample): Jia, H., & Lubetkin, E. I. (2020). Life expectancy and active life expectancy by marital status among older US adults: Results from the US Medicare Health Outcome Survey (HOS). SSM – Population Health, 12, 100642.Widowhood and well-being (contrary to claims of increased happiness): Adena, M., Hamermesh, D., Myck, M., & Oczkowska, M. (2023). Home alone: Widows’ well-being and time. Journal of Happiness Studies, 24(2), 813–838.Meta-analysis of the widowhood effect on mortality (men and women): Shor, E., Roelfs, D. J., Curreli, M., Clemow, L., Burg, M. M., & Schwartz, J. E. (2012). Widowhood and mortality: A meta-analysis and meta-regression. Demography, 49(2), 575–606.Marriage and life satisfaction across the life course (multi-country): Mikucka, M. (2016). The life satisfaction advantage of being married and gender specialization. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78(3), 759–779.Marriage, children, and happiness (Note “very happy” vs “pretty happy”): Institute for Family Studies. Who is happiest? Married mothers and fathers, per the latest General Social Survey.Anthropology: “Man the Hunter” debateOriginal paper cited by Chris Williamson challenging the “Man the Hunter” narrative: Anderson, A., Chilczuk, S., Nelson, K., Ruther, R., & Wall-Scheffler, C. (2023). The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women’s contribution to the hunt across ethnographic contexts. PLoS ONE, 18(6), e0287101.Critical commentary on Anderson et al. (2023): Venkataraman, V. V., Hoffman, J., Farquharson, K., Davis, H. E., Hagen, E. H., Hames, R. B., … Stibbard-Hawkes, D. N. (2024). Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real. Evolution and Human Behavior, 45(4), 106586.Another influential burial-based paper about female hunters in the early Americas: Haas, R., Jr., Watson, J., Buonasera, T., Southon, J., Chen, J. C., Noe, S., … Parker, G. (2020). Female hunters of the early Americas. Science Advances, 6(45), eabd0310.Critical commentary on over-interpretation of evidence cited for the depiction of gender parity in hunting: Martin, M., de la Mora, A. N., Valeggia, C., & Veile, A. (2024). Can women hunt? Yes. Did women contribute much to human evolution through endurance hunting? Probably not. American Anthropologist, 126(2), 365–369.Fertility & demographyShaw, S. J. (Director). (2022). Birthgap – Childless World.Critical fact-checking project responding to Birthgap claims: Birthgap Facts: Unplanned childlessness.Politics & fact-checkingPolitiFact on claims about abortion and vasectomies at party conventions: Ask PolitiFact: Are Democrats offering “free abortions and vasectomies” at their Chicago convention?Australian Labor Party policy platform: Our Plan.UK Labour Party policy platform: Plan for Change.

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…LinksMickey's SubstackMickey's Work and Play LabTwo Psychologists Four BeersVery Bad WizardsUhlmann, E. L., Pizarro, D. A., & Diermeier, D. (2015). A person-centered approach to moral judgment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(1), 72-81.Ovsyannikova, D., de Mello, V. O., & Inzlicht, M. (2025). Third-party evaluators perceive AI as more compassionate than expert humans. Communications Psychology, 3(1), 4.ReferencesAlter, A. L., Oppenheimer, D. M., Epley, N., & Eyre, R. N. (2007). Overcoming intuition: Metacognitive difficulty activates analytic reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(4), 569–576.Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2003). The silence of the library: Environment, situational norm, and social behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 18–28.Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford Prison Experiment. Cognition, 2(2), 243–256.Resnick, B. (2018, June 13). The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud. Vox.Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails. University of Minnesota Press.Bem, D. J. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(3), 407–425.Schimmack, U. (2018, January 20). My email correspondence with Daryl J. Bem about the data for his “Feeling the Future”. Replicability Index.Merton, R. K. (1973). The normative structure of science. In The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations (pp. 267–278). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1942).Hauser, M. (2012). Evilicious: Why we evolved a taste for being bad. Basic Books.Kay, A. C., Wheeler, S. C., Bargh, J. A., & Ross, L. (2004). Material priming: The influence of mundane physical objects on situational construal and competitive behavioral choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 95(1), 83–96.Macfarlane, B. (2024). The decay of Merton’s scientific norms and the new academic ethos. Oxford Review of Education, 50(4), 468–483.Vaidis, D. C., Sleegers, W. W. A., van Leeuwen, F., et al. (2024). A multilab replication of the induced-compliance paradigm of cognitive dissonance. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 7(1).Kelly, T. (2026). Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 62(1), e70043.