Decoding the Gurus
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...
Mel Robbins, Part 2: Matt & Chris manifest their fully actualised future selves
In Part Two of our decoding of Mel Robbins, things take a practical turn. But before we get to preoccupied with all that, why don't you pause, take a breath, and, in the context of your body, write down ten ways to make a bad situation worse. Your focus should then be on doing the exact opposite! For example, if one of your answers is to not listen to the podcast, then start listening, right now!
Next, before hitting play, let's work on building a daily manifestation practice. Write down five things you want, then sit in...
Supplementary Material 54:  Solarpunk Pecan Pie, Northern Irish Sushi, & the Discourse Meat Grinder
We return from our holidays with an indulgent episode that starts light and ends up very dark as we turn to the unavoidable Jason Arday discourse.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 40 mins)
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 54
00:00 Pecan Pie Introduction
04:10 Solar Punk Matt
08:17 Ireland Trip Report
15:24 Australian Burger Culture
17:32 Manga Cafe Experiments
24:10 Joe Rogan on AI Remote Viewing
29:14 Parapsychology as a Research Field
34:07 A One Man...
Mel Robbins, Part 1: The Hard Science of Manifestation
Are you tired, stuck, or inconveniently constrained by reality? Good news: you may simply be imagining the wrong one.
In Part One of our decoding of Mel Robbins, we explore the world of a self-help mogul who is also just a simple mother of three in Vermont hosting a little ol' podcast with a HUGE global impact. Together with Cassandra Vieten, a psychologist who is (apparently) one of the world's leading researchers on imagination and consciousness, Mel explains how to begin to stop reacting and start imagining, visualising, and manifesting the life you truly deserve. This will...
Jimmy Carr & Joe Rogan: The Jester & the Khan
Joe Rogan, the Great Khan of podcasting, is once again receiving a travelling jester at court. This time it is Jimmy Carr who arrives bearing gifts: pop evolutionary psychology, dubious history factoids, conservative "common sense", and an apparently bottomless appetite for telling Joe just how important he is.
After listening to their three-hour conversation(!), we conclude there is nothing much of note beyond serving as a nice demonstration of popular "alternative" podcasting in 2026. What you get is a medley of sycophantic praise; regurgitated pop science and historical factoids; right-wing political positions presented as basic common sense; and...
Lab Leak Groundhog Day: COVID Origins in 2026 with Worobey, Andersen, and Holmes
With the Trump administration’s newest political persecution of Anthony Fauci and three years after our first lab-leak special, now seemed like a useful time to return to the topic. Fortunately, you do not have to rely on our knowledge of viruses, as we have somehow managed to convince the same three esteemed virologists, Eddie Holmes, Kristian Andersen and Michael Worobey, to come back for an update.
Mike, Kristian and Eddie return and offer us their read on where the scientific evidence on COVID’s origins stands in 2026. They take us through the main lines of evidence and...
Supplementary Material 53: Matthew the Succulent, Bin-faced Politicians, and Very Very Tired Economists
We endure the ravages of time to deliver you this exhausted Supplementary Material. Bowed but never broken, the decoders persist.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 2hr 20 mins)
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 53
00:23 Introduction: Matthew the Succulent's Post-Holiday Report
02:15 Pickle Ball Injuries & Bouldering Curses
07:40 They Won't Let You Talk about Middle-Aged Sports Injuries
08:37 New AI Models
09:31 Cory Doctorow, Trevor Noah, and Confirmation Bias
23:45 The Glorious Past and the Terrible Present
28:28...
Supplementary Material 52: Under-Optimized Academics, Tired Economists, and Bailiwick Clarifications
Two absolutely shattered academic heroes heroically drag themselves through yet another supplementary episode to bring you the important guru news in between their restorative breaks.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 32 mins)
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
00:00 Introduction
02:13 Eliot Paisley's Anatomy of an Optimiser
08:52 Eric Weinstein wants a University Position and a Stipend
16:09 The Failure of the Anti-Woke Quasi Universities
19:19 Gary is Knackered Again
20:45 Gary is the best inequality economist in the world
24:36...
Decoding Academia 36: Revenge of the Chimpanzees *Patreon Series*
In this Decoding Academia episode, we venture into comparative psychology, focusing on a fascinating line of work by Fumihiro Kano and colleagues on social intelligence and theory of mind in great apes. By showing apes short videos and tracking where they look, researchers examine whether they expect others to act based on what they have seen, what they know, or what they falsely believe. This approach offers a remarkable window into the evolutionary roots of human social cognition or, alternatively, the most elaborate way yet devised to explore what a chimp thinks of a man in a chimpanzee costume.<...
Professor Jiang, Part 2: Cosmic Jiang's Jenga Tower of Bullshit
We return for Part 2 of our coverage of “Professor” Jiang, the internet’s favourite new geopolitical prophet, secondary-school sage, and proud owner of an ever-expanding box of educational props. Having already treated us to multiple maps, chess pieces, and a sealed metal case of predictions, Jiang is back with more predictions, more props, and even higher-level insights.
This time, we get the dramatic unveiling of a fresh batch of forecasts, including the forthcoming U.S. civil war, AI surveillance states, a grand bargain with China, the Greater Israel project, and the coming East Asian conflict. During all of thi...
Professor Jiang, Part 1: Geopolitical Pantomime
On Decoding the Gurus, we regularly get to hear a lot of truly “high-level” ideas, but the much-requested subject of this episode’s decoding is up there with the best of them. We are talking, of course, about “Professor” Jiang, the internet’s favourite new overly confident online guru, now that Jordan Peterson is indisposed. Jiang Xueqin is a secondary school teacher who has found an online audience thirsty for his particular style of confident bullshit, and he is more than ready to roll out his “predictive history” analyses on command.
Be prepared for some serious professorial cosplay as Steph...
Supplementary Material 51: Parasitic Palate Cleansers, Selective Understanding, and the "Context"
We exercise good faith and grapple with the ever-versatile context window in this unintentionally thematic episode.
Supplementary Material 51
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (Full Episode: 1hr 18 mins)
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
00:00 Introduction
01:40 Jordan Hall's Suspicious Semiotic Parasites
08:52 A New Covenant for the American Republic
14:33 Dave Rubin's support group after Jubilee
14:52 Dr. K vs 20 Depressed People
20:05 The Fifth Column Welcomes Batya Ungar Sargon (Again)
21:18 Anti-Semitism isn't really an issue on the Right
<...Gurometer: Iain McGilchrist *Patreon Preview*
In this Gurometer edition, Matt and Chris feed Iain McGilchrist into the sacred instrument to see where exactly refined country-parish-minister vibes land when combined with galaxy-brained hemispheres, civilisational decline narratives, decorative scholarship, and the other features of guruosity.
Iain McGilchrist Gurometer
00:27 Introduction
01:00 Iain McGilchrist Reactions
04:40 Galaxy Brain-ness
06:39 Cultishness
08:28 Anti-Establishmentarianism
11:39 Grievance Mongering
14:30 Self-Aggrandizement and Narcissism
17:21 Cassandra Complex
19:54 Revolutionary Theories
20:48 Pseudo-Profound Bullshit
24:10 Conspiracy Mongering
25:08 Excessive Profiteering
26:10 Moral Grandstanding
27:15 Overall Score
<...Supplementary Material 50: The String Theory Mafia, Shameless Propagandists, and The Topography of Semantic Space
We become highly effective at exploiting the gap between salience and relevance as we universalise semiotic capability and listen to more brave renegades talking about how amazing they are. Join us, won't you?
Supplementary Material 50 (Full Episode: 2hrs 23 mins)
00:24 Introduction
02:07 British People Struggling with Compliments
04:53 Matt loves SOME episode titles
08:42 Nachos Pronunciation
10:13 Brett Weinstein vs Michael Tracey
29:08 Brett pivots to his Anti-Vaxx Hits
42:32 The Hug Box World of Podcasting
45:55 When Eric met Joe (again)
47:29 Eric and Rogan re-litigate Sean...
L. Ron Hubbard: Sleeping with Bandits, Hunting with Pygmies And So On
The Decoders wrap up cult season by dissecting a titan of the cult scene, the founder of Scientology, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard or L. Ron for short. A prolific science fiction author, L. Ron founded an alternative self-help movement and then developed it into his cosmic self-help 'religion' of Scientology.
Scientology has now been the subject of multiple documentaries and even a fairly detailed South Park parody episode, so it feels like many are aware of the general 'deal' of Scientology. But how about L. Rob Hubbard as a guru... how many people have actually taken the time...
Supplementary Material 49: Calibrated Podcast Expectations, The Great Consciousness Debate of 2026, and Russell Brand is a Bad Guy
Matthew Browne, a high-profile advocate for pan-psychism, compels his reluctant co-host to endure a public struggle session on the topic of consciousness, hopefully for the last time.
Supplementary Material 49
00:00 Introduction
02:47 Returning to the Emerald Isle
03:44 Irish History Segment: The Titanic & Potato Famines
10:45 McGilchrist Reflections
12:51 Knowledge Fight has ended
26:23 Podcasting Motivations
34:37 Calibrated Expectations
41:03 The Problem with the Patreon Members
42:51 Shermer's Activist Skeptic Research
47:24 Research on Support for Political Violence in the US
54:35 Rob Henderson and Decorative...
Iain McGilchrist, Part 2: Hemispheres, Culture, and Cosmic Consciousness
In this episode, we return to Iain McGilchrist as he spirals upwards from his binary hemispheric model into full cosmic spirituality. The rule is simple: everything McGilchrist likes is due to the subtle, nuanced, and deeply sophisticated right brain, while the left brain (pffft) is responsible for reductionism, modernity, and most of the problems in your life.
From this neuroscientific foundation, the theory expands with admirable ambition. Civilisations rise and fall depending on which hemisphere they inhabit. Ancient societies were properly attuned to the right brain, while the modern world has gone mechanical and spiritually bankrupt. The...
Supplementary Material 48: Grey Beard's Council, Late-Stage Anti-Capitalism, and Demonic Mould Health Updates
The hour grows late, and Matt the Grey-Haired rides once more from his quiet study, summoned by whispers from the ever-churning gurusphere. And so he goes, to seek counsel with Chris the Grey-Bearded, keeper of receipts, watcher of long-form content, and wielder of the sacred Gurometer. For the gurus stir again… and their nonsense must be decoded.
Supplementary Material 48: Grey Beard's Council, Late-Stage Anti-Capitalism, and Demonic Mould Health Updates
00:00 Greetings Old Friend
02:22 Decoding the Gamers
04:16 A Reckoning with Old Grey Hair
06:19 Joe Rogan determining US Medical Approvals
12:15 Th...
Iain McGilchrist, Part 1: Right-Brain Thinking
In this episode, we take a journey into the mind, traversing both the left and right hemispheres, but mostly the left, as we engage with the truly mind-bending insights of British psychiatrist-philosopher-neuroscientist-theologian-author Iain McGilchrist. Best known for his 2009 book "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World" but also a much lauded academic and sensemaker.
We outline McGilchrist’s extremely complicated thesis that the two hemispheres of the brain reflect fundamentally different “ways of being” and that this is reflected in individuals and civilisations that rely more on one side than t...
Mentalism and Meta-Deception with Stevie Baskin
On this episode, we’re joined by Stevie Baskin, a skeptic and YouTuber who released a five-hour detailed critique of the “meta-deception” of Oz Pearlman. He argues that mentalism differs from traditional magic by introducing an additional meta-deception because, unlike magicians, mentalists often leave their audiences with inaccurate beliefs about body language reading, subliminal influence, NLP, and general psychology. In Stevie’s framework, this places mentalists closer to psychics and mediums than to magicians, because the deceptive element is not clearly acknowledged.
We examine this position, unpack common mentalist techniques, consider the role of strategic disclaimers and TED-styl...
Supplementary Material 47: The DTG Conspiracy UNMASKED, Quantum Idiots, and Triggernometry Prophecies
Our cover is blown. Our secret funders unmasked. Code Red: Abort! Abort! This is not a drill.
Supplementary Material 47: The DTG Conspiracy UNMASKED, Quantum Idiots, and Triggernometry Prophecies
00:00 Glowing Introduction
03:14 The Secret Conspiracy at the Heart of the Podcast
08:17 The Israel Connection
19:09 Cenk Uygur's Pickleball Conspiracy
23:25 Comment Section Conspiracies
30:20 Pizzagate Conspiracies Revisited
37:55 The Value of debating with ChadBigCum
42:26 AI discourse reflections
43:43 Ben Burgis's hyperbolic reaction to AI use
44:53 The AI revolution and its potential impacts
47:53...
The Moral Dilemmas of AI with Michael Inzlicht
Mickey is BACK with two new papers he has co-authored, a bunch of opinions, and a very unwelcome idea: maybe the problem with AI isn't that it doesn't work but that it works too well!
The first paper, Against Frictionless AI, argues that AI assistance and its ability to take away the effort from thinking, writing, and smooth out social(like) interactions could be robbing those activities of the very thing that makes them worthwhile.
The second paper is a more empirical investigation that presents a bunch of studies examining the topic of the (alleged...
Ken Wilber: Spiralling Upwards through a Technicolor Cosmos
Ken Wilber, the grand architect of Integral Theory, enters the Decoding chamber (wearing a striking but slightly unconvincing wig) as we explore a worldview that confidently absorbs every religion, philosophy, and half-remembered psychology paper into one majestic, Borg-like synthesis. Resistance, as it turns out, is not just futile... it is probably “first-tier thinking".
This is a world of elaborate, baroque cosmologies. Layers within layers, quadrants within stages, spirals within states, with each offering a map of reality that grows more intricate the closer it gets to its own centre. Traditions are not debated so much as absorbed, th...
Gurometer: Teal Swan and Scott Galloway
In this Gurometer double bill, Matt and Chris break out the much-sought-after Gurometer™ to score Teal Swan and Scott Galloway across the 11 recurring guru traits. In one efficient episode, we compare cosmic-certified spirituality with secular man-talk (and a surprising amount of puffer-jacket merchandising). As a bonus, get ready to thrill at Matt's eternal puzzlement at his own simple binary question of 'guru-osity'.
Links
Gurometer scores to dateThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (51 mins).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Gurometer: Teal Swan and Scott Galloway
...Supplementary Material 46: Epstein Did Microtransactions, Grok Did Nothing Wrong, and Murder is Bad
In our never-ending quest to alienate all potential online audiences, we finger-wag about rampant Epstein conspiracism and explain why we are, on balance, anti-murder.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 42 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
In our never-ending quest to alienate all potential online audiences, we finger-wag about rampant Epstein conspiracism and explain why we are, on balance, anti-murder.
00:00 Intro
03:39 Flooding Adventures
06:54 Eric's Troubles with his Silicon Friend
13:09 Peter Boghossian's Hardcore for Grok
17:16 A Promising Paper...
Blindboy, Part 2: Where Have All the Good Men Gone?
In Part 2, Matt and Chris return to Blindboy, now broadcasting from a solar-powered podcast and therefore morally unimpeachable. The darkness, however, remains. Having established in Part 1 that the global elite are a vampiric class of depraved blackmailers who traffic children and delight in cruelty, in Part 2, Blindboy offers us some welcome relief in the form of answering the question of what it looks like to be one of the good ones. You may be surprised to learn that it involves a missing dressing room, muddy socks, and a loyalty to small-time promoters that some might call heroic.
...
Blindboy, Part 1: Unmasking the Evil Elite Cabal
In this episode, Matt and Chris turn their attention to Blindboy Boatclub, the Irish podcaster, satirist, and former member of the Rubberbandits. Blindboy is recognisable for his plastic-bag headwear, which has transitioned from a comedy prop into something a bit deeper and more philosophical. His podcast blends ASMR-style delivery, stream-of-consciousness storytelling, and cultural and political commentary, drifting between reflections on mental health, colonialism, Irish history, and the origins of the month of February. It is a distinctive format: whispered monologues over gentle piano where poetic association, personal reflection, and narrative intuition take precedence. For many listeners, that unique mixture...
Decoding Academia: Moral Entrepreneurs, Measurement Issues, & Screentime with Andrew Przybylski (Patreon Preview)
Another episode where the guest is not a sense-making prophet or a galaxy-brained guru, as we engage in academic dialogos with Oxford psychologist Andrew Przybylski. This is a preview of our Decoding Academia series on Patreon (now 30+ episodes deep), where we swap internet gurus and rhetoric for actual researchers and empirical debates.
Andrew’s work spans motivation, gaming, and digital technology. His most recent crime is that he studies the impact of technology and has not found evidence that it is destroying wellbeing and ushering in civilisational collapse. We discuss the ongoing moral panic around smartphones, social me...
Supplementary Material 45: Mick Drops, The Weinstein Conspiracy Hour, and Lessons from History
We return to some old friends, and almost immediately, we regret the decision. Also, get ready for some heady insights from history, a new conspiracy hypothesis, and Game Theory based insights.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1 hour, 37 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
Supplementary Material 45
00:00 Introduction
01:15 Mick Drop
04:44 Scott Galloway's Favourite Conservative
06:37 Konstantin Kisin: Neither Right Nor Left
11:51 Insane Ad Reads in Podcastistan
17:08 Aella's insights on history
20:30 Bret's New Conspiracy Episode
22:10...
Decoding Academia 35: When Prophecy Fails Debunked? (Patreon Series)
Ever heard of cognitive dissonance? That thing a psychology lecturer might have explained to you once upon a time, likely using the same UFO cult example everyone else uses. Well, a new paper by Thomas Kelly suggests that the UFO cult example might have been ever so slightly oversold.
Kelly's archival work suggests that the researchers didn't just observe the cult as reported. Instead, they infiltrated it, faked supernatural experiences, assumed quasi-leadership roles, and then wrote up the results as if the group had spontaneously doubled down on their failed prophecy, which they had not. Because the...
Teal Swan: All Hail Source
Cult Season rumbles on as Chris and Matt expand their minds in an attempt to absorb the cosmic insights of spiritual influencer and alleged cult leader Teal Swan (born Mary Teal Bosworth, 1984). Our intrepid hosts explore her recent appearance on the Just Tap In podcast with Emilio “starchild” Ortiz — a beanie-wearing vessel of pure credulity, lobbing softball metaphysical questions gently into the astral winds.
The topic covered is ostensibly “Major 2026 Predictions” but this is really just an entry point for discussion of the ancient origins of AI, multiversal astral contract negotiations, and, of course, the urgent need to discuss...
Decoding Academia 34: Empathetic AIs? (Patreon Series)
In this Decoding Academia episode, we take a look at a 2025 paper by Daria Ovsyannikova, Victoria Olden, and Mickey Inzlicht, asking a question that might make some people uncomfortable/angry, specifically, are AI-generated responses perceived as more empathetic than those written by actual humans?
We walk through the design in detail (including why this is a genuinely severe test), hand out deserved open-science brownie points, and discuss why AI seems to excel particularly when responding to negative or distress-laden prompts. Along the way, Chris reflects on his unsettlingly intense relationship with Google’s semi-sentient customer-service agent “Bubbles,” and we...
The Rise of the Science Populists with Sam Gregson and Tim Henke
In this interview episode, we are joined by physicists Sam Gregson (Bad Boy of Science YouTube channel) and Tim Henke to examine the rise of science populism: a style of science communication that borrows the tactics of political populism, including grievance narratives, institutional distrust, and conspiratorial framing, while presenting its advocates as lone truth-tellers battling a corrupt academic elite.
We discuss how DTG favourites like Sabine Hossenfelder and Eric Weinstein, as well as fresh new faces Brian Keating and Avi Loeb, deploy selective truths about physics to fuel self-aggrandising, anti-expert narratives.
Along the way, we...
Supplementary Material 44: Peasant Archmages, Moral Panics, and LOTR Parenting Tips
We descend once more into the Gurusphere, encountering secret peasant archmages, decline narratives, Epstein emails, and endless moral panics.
The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1 hour, 37 minutes).
Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus
00:00 SM 44 PF
00:23 Introduction
01:30 Konstantin Kisin: Not Left Or Right, Just Right
05:20 Boghossian is shocked by pessimistic French people
08:50 Konstantin and Warren Smith as relics of the anti-SJW era
12:45 A PSA! Hyper Capitalism Tier Update!
18:36 Matt's AV Setup
20:01 Recommendation: Successville (British version)
<...Open Science, Psychology, and the Art of Not Quite Claiming Causality with Julia Rohrer
In a rare departure from our usual diet of online weirdos, this episode features an academic who is very much not a guru. We’re joined by Julia Rohrer, a psychologist at Leipzig University whose work straddles the disciplinary boundaries of open science, research transparency, and causal inference. Julia is also an editor at Psychological Science and has spent much of the last decade politely pointing out that psychologists often don’t quite know what they’re estimating, why, or under which assumptions.
We talk about the state of psychology after the replication crisis, whether open science reform...
Supplementary Material 43: Red-Blooded Americans, Real Life Alan Partridge, and Rationalist Eulogies
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
3...
Scott Galloway, Part 2: Peak Masculinity
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...
Supplementary Material 42: Chimpanzee Testicles, Home Alone Statistics, and Influencer Research
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...
Scott Galloway, Part 1: On Men
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 ba...
The Replication Crisis Christmas Quiz w/ Mickey Inzlicht & Dave Pizarro
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 qu...
DTG Christmas Quiz 2025 with Helen Lewis
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 qu...
