Decoding the Gurus26 Helmi 2022

Interview with Virginia Heffernan on Edge, the dangers of Scientism, & Culture Wars

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!

Links

Virginia's piece on Edge & John Brockman
Virginia's essays on Wired
Virginia's Substack piece on Jordan Peterson
Virginia's Substack piece on Peter Thiel
Virginia's Website
Virginia's book: Magic & Loss- The Internet as Art
Insider article on the sordid tale of Chris chan
Two articles Chris wrote on his ancient blog about the Captain Cook debate (part 1 and part 2)

This Week's Sponsor

Check out the sponsor of this week's episode, Ground News, and get the app at ground.news/gurus.

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Interview with Julia Ebner: Extremist Networks & Radicalisation

On this week's episode, we have an extended interview with author and researcher, Julia Ebner. Julia is a Senior Resident Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and has written a seri...

16 Loka 20232h 3min

Triggernometry's Big Moment: Entering the Guru Galaxy

In modern online ecosystems, attention and download metrics reign supreme. Sadly, the gurus are not immune to these incentives, with even the most successful, *cough* Jordan Peterson *cough*, regularl...

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Interview with the Conspirituality Trio: Navigating the Chakras of Conspiracy

Back in the early days of the podcast, we tried to take a rest from the wearisome repetition of polemical partisan gurus by covering JP Sears- an alternative-health self-help coach with a sideline in ...

19 Syys 20232h 40min

Andrew Huberman: Forest Bathing in Negative Ions

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6 Syys 20232h 10min

Noam Chomsky: Lover of linguistics, the USA... not so much

OK, so we're finally getting around to taking a chunk out of the prodigious, prolific, and venerable Noam Chomsky. Linguist, cognitive scientist, media theorist, political activist and cultural commen...

18 Elo 20233h 22min

The Science and the Art of Gurometry

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22 Heinä 20231h 29min

Mick West & Eric Weinstein: UFO Tango

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14 Heinä 20232h 56min

Interview with Jonathan Howard on Covid Contrarians

The pandemic was a confusing time with public health messages from officials and institutions that were sometimes confused, conflicting, or misrepresented and anti-vaccine misinformation being spread ...

23 Kesä 20232h 8min