@@zyguit you are right. The dark horse Weinstine is the goat. Russell has some concept of the the limits of his knowledge. The Weinsteins are omniscient.
Brand is hardly dumb. He recognised a golden opportunity in the pandemic and embraced it beautifully. He was smart enough to realise that the only people who mattered were the ones the full guru act worked on. He also doubled down on the hot button topics when his "troubles" hit the headlines, which really solidified support from the fans. He may be spouting BS, but it is superficially very coherent, delivered without pause and erudite sounding.
I would find a chart of the griftiness of these people quite interesting. Of course, guruing is highly correlated with grifting. But there are some differences. Everyone in guru S-tier is also a grifter, but while Musk and Eric Weinstein have been grifters from the start, most of the others seem to have succumbed to it some time after they became famous. And while some people in C and D tier, like Gad Saad and Dave Rubin, are clearly pure grifters, some of the higher ups, like Rogan, could plausibly be stupid in good faith. Finally, people like Kendi, Harari and Paltrow I'm not entirely sure about.
Also dr. K's placement seems pretty high, the eastern medicine is a thing, and ive only seen a section of his stuff, but in everything ive seen when asked about it, hes willing to explain in depth that he believes that its a helpful 'framework' for viewing some issues/remedies in mental health, BUT that many of the historical and present practices are wrong and that he thinks there should be some meaningful internal and external review of the practices to remove dangerous/ineffective ones and find helpful ones(the same way meditation and mindfulness come from spiritual traditions but have proveable utility in medicine and mental health today). But maybe hes more hardline in what i havent seen? But the willingness to say 'i like these ideas and i have anecdotal evidence some of them work, but they arent fully vetted and i want more research into whether these things work and if so how they can effectively be used' seems very unguru.
Dr. K was just officially reprimanded by the psychiatry board for being unprofessional. He’s awful and people give him too much wiggle room for the abject nonsense he peddles
A lot of that Eastern medicine is pseudoscience, not grounded on science, mostly traditions. It can offer relief for certain conditions if it's integrated with modern healthcare.
the reason i hate this tier list because i cannot really understand this guru-meter thing and people can be on the same tier with such a high intellectual disparity that makes me uncomfortable to just look at
I discovered Christopher on tv when I was a teenager in the 90's. And though I can't explain why, something in me said that I should trust anything that this person says. Mind you I couldn't understand anything he was saying at the time and so it wasn't that he was affirming any of my beliefs or intuitions. He just had this charisma about him that made me trust him. If I found out something I had believed opposed what he believed, I would instantly change my mind. I have probably listened, watched, and read as much Christopher material as anyone on the planet. And this includes finding a guy in England, in the pre-youtube days, who had a hundred hours of every public interview, debate, speech, etc that Christopher had ever done. So yes, I would say there is something of a guruness there, even if it was never his explicit intention. He was also totally open about how he never passed up an opportunity to appear on tv, though he would contradict this statement later when he claimed that he refused to go on air to discuss the death of playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith.
would be fun to see older philosophy/psychology gurus in the next list. like alan watts, terrence mckenna, carl jung, etc. and an additional rating based on good and evil or one of those rankings that go from chaotic good to chaotic evil and lawful good to lawful evil
How is Heather A tier? Without Bret she wouldn't have an audience, surely being a guru is more than just spouting nonsense you have to have an ability to attract an audience.
@@potatopotatow this was many weeks ago...they were doing a Weinstein segment and played a clip of their podcast and said they like the work that they do...
This is an interesting video. I have my agreements and disagreements with the broad spectrum of these people. I think an interesting episode would be on how a respectable expert and a guru (in a negative sense) are different. How can I become an expert in my field without becoming a dubious life coach? How can I avoid going to the dark side, so to speak? I'd find a show like that helpful.
Could you explain why Dave Rubin is on a lower ranking compared to say Kisin or Adams? Given Adams is described likewise as a pundit I would imagine Rubin would rank higher as a guru.
Chomsky isn't at all a guru. He stays in his own lanes of linguistics/politics. He's in no way anti intellecthalist, no hocus pocus in his work. He's simply an academic/public intellectual. Secondly, Contrapoints, she shares many of the same characteristics as Chomsky. She's just a video essayist/public intellectual. Conversely, Joe Rogaines is totally an S tier guru, if only for his cult of personality, and the anti intellectualism is off the charts. He's the very meaning of a guru. Also don't forget his woowoo health guru aspect.
@@jake______ most of them are. There isn't much of a network for anticaptalist grifting, unless you're shilling for Russia, but most of those people happen to be right wingers
Guys, can you do an episode on David Deutsch? He's not that well known as the other people you've covered so far, but he is an interesting case: He is academically accomplished, but also makes very strong claims about fields outside his expertise.
Whether most of these guys are gurus depends on whether or not they have followers who put them in that position. Hitchens was just a bit loathe to admit defeat and was slippery for that reason. It was arguably his confidence and doggedness which made him such a good journalist. Douglas Murray looks genuine to me, is very capable of holding his own under serious interrogation and there is the added bonus that he is arguably correct in his central tenets. He is carrying on where Hitchens left off in some respects, in fact he discusses extant circumstances which are the very ones Hitchens warned Britain of.
@@asmodeuszdewa7194 guru in Hindi literally means teacher. 'guru' in the west and especially on this channel is used in a negative sense. So if most of these 'gurus' are white and from the west, why use Indian/Hindu symbols. What you're saying would imply using British symbology for all English words.
@@DS-ux9ld in English, guru means: "a religious leader or teacher in the Hindu or Sikh religion". Informally, it can also be used to describe people who give advice on a certain topic. And although they define the term differently, they were clearly inspired by the former definition, while making the logo.
Because India is packed with dodgy gurus who manifest vibuthi and various other objects and make all sorts of daft claims about their mystical powers. To say they only fool Westerners would be false as they predominantly cater to the local market. We call people like Russell Brand gurus because they model themselves on indian mystics.
@@DS-ux9ld I have seen some indian gurus and their characteristic isnt that they teach but manipulate crowds into believing they are being taught the secrets of the universe. This is what "secular guru" is referencing.
@@decodingthegurus Hmm, I'll have to learn to code a program that can do that automatically and then make some money next time you guys do this. Or literally just make one real quick for the subject you are currently on and store it in a folder.
@@decodingthegurusnext time just crop without resizing and you can force everyone to guess based on just a nose, or just an eye, or just a little bit of neck fat
John Vervaeke, Peter Boghossian, Jonathan Pageau, Steven Bartlett, Robert Greene, Alain DeBottom, Gabor Mate, Chris Williamson, Matthew Walker, Stephen Fry, Rory Sutherland, Owen Jones, Tim Pool, Malcolm Gladwell, Ali Abdaal David Pakman, Cenk Uygur, Ben Shapiro, Jimmy Dore... the list is nearly endless.
I am not sure about all people from the list but for first and third I would also vote. 👍🏻 It's interesting that you brought up Peter Greene. I would not consider him as guru. At least I don't see anything toxic about him.
@@PeterIntrovert "Amatour researcher in the heart of cognitive science". Do you mean: "An amateur researching the heart of cognitive science"? Or... "An amateur researcher, studying at the heart of cognitive science"? Or something else entirely?
Providing a clear criteria and weighting per criterion would have provided a better understanding of how you have arrived at your decisions. Particularly when trying to make sense of the miscellaneous group residing on Tier D. Enjoyed the commentary nonetheless.
Brene Brown should totally be under Actually Good. She communicates a lot of sound evidence-based mental health practices. Yes she gets vibey with her style but she's actually good.
Vaush would be a good subject, he should be right up there w Destiny. Not much on conspiracism or anti intellectualism, but sheer ego would put him on the list, imo.
I’ve never seen that clip of the three lads sitting on the couch. Holy moly, those guys love the smell of their own farts. Could put a picture of them on that couch next to a definition of grandiose smugness.
Matt Walsh would be a good addition, along with Trump, the guru of gurus, maybe beyond guru into full blown cult leader. Tucker Carlson would likewise be very high up.
Lol, for sure. He might be the preeminent guru of our time. Total cult of personality and he's all over the damn place pontificating on nearly everything as if he's a completed renaissance man.
i do not know how rubin is below Yuval, Destiny or Hasan Is it because he's a complete joke that no one takes him seriously and his grift doesn't work?
Well idk if I agree w that rationale but at least there is one I think purely by virtue of how obvious is grift is he should be placed higher. Because destiny and yuval and i imagine some of the others, while they are more successful, they aren’t really grifters. Idk sure I guess
Should've had a Guru By Proxy for those who may or may not be dead but exist as selective memes on Tube and elsewhere with "10 minutes of XX OWNING..."
I don't think you should put that much stock into a tier list. They are aware of Destiny vs Hasan beef so I am sure they did that as a "hot take" clickbait.
I'll have to watch the hasan episode, because the "conspiratorial" side isn't exactly coming to the top of my head. Maybe I just throw it away in the background and ignore it when it comes up. I assume it's not being mistaken for some of his bad calls related to geopolitics.
You should really expand your horizons to the get rich quick scheme gurus who sell their courses. They do a lot more financial harm to their audiences than these guys, some of which have some very useful info The Andrew tates, Iman Gadzhi's, Hamza's, Sebastian Giorgiu's, Jordan Welch's sell information that's freely available online for 500-1500/yr ... Not to mention the ripple effects of up and coming wannabe random channels who are following in their footsteps who have even less credentials than these larger gurus and will do anything to convince people to buy their course! I see you claim to arrange them on secular guruosity but why limit your audience?
Why should gurus be normally distributed? That would mean very few small gurus, which would mean you could list them, like the few S tier gurus. Its more reasonable with an exponential distribution. Few big, many small, like with earth quakes.
I don't see Daniel Schmachtenberger on here. That's good. I feel like Daniel came to fame through association with many gurus, but individually, he actually has a hell of a lot of substance, and is genuinely well researched, rather than a fountain of poetic nothing-burger abstractions the way many of his associate peers are.
@@decodingthegurus Don't you think that's a bit of guilt-by-association? Obviously Hall is a clown, but Schmachtenberger actually has substance. His arguments extend from detailed, researched assessments on subjects. Not just narcissistic obscurist naval gazing. He hurt his brand for a few years by agreeing to surround himself with gurus, but he seems to be working more now with substantive dudes like Nate Hagens.
@@user-ud7ko4cq1nNope. I’ve seen a bunch of Daniel’s content. More substantive than Jordan Hall, but overall very similar to most sensemakers. Above Hall, below Vervaeke but all in same category.
@@decodingthegurus Other than the Hall/Wheal/Schmachtenberger debacle video (where Daniel was the least ridiculous), name one other video where Daniel gives you hardcore guru vibes? I'm not saying you're wrong, but in recent years, he's more associated with guys like Tristan Harris, Nate Hagens, Ian McGilchrist. I mean Sam Harris briefly tolerated Bret Weinstein around him. I don't think that means Sam and Bret should be lumped together forever.
I really like Sam Harris and don’t think he’s a modern guru. But would have been interested where you would have put him on the tier list. Seems like he was intentionally left off…?
I don’t know all the categories on their Gurometer, but I think the Horesemen are quite different to one another in their overall careers. The other Horsemen are much more straight academics, in terms of Dennet and Dawkins, and much more of a straight political commentator, in terms of Hitch. I think it’s Sam Harris’s position as a founding member of the IDW, rather than his position of a Horseman, that gives him a higher score on the Gurometer. He broke with the other IDW guys over their Covid conspiracism, so that makes him a lot less Guru than them. But those guys are all S or A tier. So he is between them and the other Horsemen.
@@willmosse3684 Right! Plus Sam has a whole interlinked politics, morality, determinism, no free will, Buddhist modernism, thing… to which he is very strongly attached.
@@decodingthegurus He does have an interlinked framework that he is very attached to. But, having this evening gone over your Gurometer criteria, and also listened to most of your interview with Harris from 5 months ago, I have to say that I definitely don’t think that he should be rated as highly as B. I would say maybe D, or maybe he’s not really a Guru at all. On the “vibe” check you use in this episode, I totally think he “feels” Guru-ish. And I disagree VERY strongly with him on a lot of things. But strictly on your criteria, I don’t know. to be fair, there is nothing inherently wrong with an interdisciplinary approach, and there is in fact a natural connection between all of those topics you list. “Determinism” and “no free will” are almost different words for the same thing. And meditative introspection, part of what you term “Buddhist modernism”, directly relates to the examination of the presence or absence of free will. If thoughts and volitions are observed to just arise in consciousness, then where is the space for libertarian free will? It’s not the whole argument, but it’s certainly germane. And the presence or absence of free will directly feeds into the discussion of morality - how responsible is a criminal for his actions if there is no libertarian free will? Again, it’s not the whole topic. But it feeds into it in important ways. And then, morality directly feeds into any discussion of politics. We would hope to govern and legislate in a way that reflects our understanding of morality. So I’m not sure this really meets the Galaxy Brain criterion. Now, I personally think Sam is pretty good on his secular Buddhist meditation stuff (I didn’t really think that Chris managed to land any salient criticism on that during your discussion, and I’ve thought about this topic a lot), on his free will stuff and on his moral philosophy framework (even if there may be holes in its underpinning). Where I think he goes horribly wrong is in his leap from his fairly insightful theoretical frameworks into their application to the real world - i.e. his politics. I think much of what he advocates will definitely not lead us to any mountain peaks in his moral landscape, but will have us mired is some pretty dark and dank valleys. To the point where I struggle to even listen to the guy these days. This is most poignant in, though not restricted to, his analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I could not bring myself to listen to the last the last 45 mins of your recent interview with him (and I dropped a longish critique of his whole framing of the situation under that video, which I would be interested to hear your thoughts on). So whilst he certainly meets the self-aggrandising narcissism criterion, and perhaps touches on some of the other criteria, I would say only minimally on those. And there are some where I don’t think he meets them at all. I don’t think he uses pseudo-profound bullshit, for example, but is a very very clear communicator, and cares about that a lot. Which is why he had such trouble with Jordan Peterson’s PSB on the definition of truth. He certainly gave himself a Guru vibe by getting himself so interlinked with the IDW before breaking from it - that was a bad mistake. But actually analysing him against the criteria - I think not a guru…
I don't think the red scare people should be meaningfully different than destiny/Hasan, in terms of content of what is being said/asserted they def score a bit higher(more into pushing fringe science and conspiracy than destiny and even hasan even though they mask it under irony), the higher para social thing with fans seems to just be a function of streaming vs putting out a long form podcast, BUT they dedicated fans seem just as committed, just less likely to engage in direct interactions/less able to engage in a greater volume of content. Like by this logic any streamer is considerably more guru than any long form content maker no matter what they are saying/doing.
Russell is the goat. So confident about big ideas yet so dumb. The gap is filled with pure guruness.
He's good I admit but I'm rooting for the Weinstein brothers to share the gold medal.
@@zyguit you are right. The dark horse Weinstine is the goat. Russell has some concept of the the limits of his knowledge. The Weinsteins are omniscient.
@@CyberSamuraii all hail the Weinsteins :)
Brand is hardly dumb. He recognised a golden opportunity in the pandemic and embraced it beautifully. He was smart enough to realise that the only people who mattered were the ones the full guru act worked on. He also doubled down on the hot button topics when his "troubles" hit the headlines, which really solidified support from the fans. He may be spouting BS, but it is superficially very coherent, delivered without pause and erudite sounding.
@@Ollies2CentsWardill it's called schizophrenia
Do the second tier list as per who you liked/respect more or less. Seeing them side by side would be interesting
inverse relationship
That would be good
I haven't made it to the Lex episode yet, but I can't wait to have my feelings towards him validated after hearing that small tidbit in this!
6:28 this was so hilarious
Carl Sagan is the GOAT. One of my favorite persons in the world
I would find a chart of the griftiness of these people quite interesting. Of course, guruing is highly correlated with grifting. But there are some differences. Everyone in guru S-tier is also a grifter, but while Musk and Eric Weinstein have been grifters from the start, most of the others seem to have succumbed to it some time after they became famous. And while some people in C and D tier, like Gad Saad and Dave Rubin, are clearly pure grifters, some of the higher ups, like Rogan, could plausibly be stupid in good faith. Finally, people like Kendi, Harari and Paltrow I'm not entirely sure about.
Hasan would win in the grift tierlist fr
Agree about Lex Friedman he tries soooooo hard, A for effort
He wants to be a guru for all, very democratic guru.
@@LukeMcGuireoides true centrist
@@CyberSamuraii he's not actually a centrist. He's disengenuous and he anders constantly. He wishy washy af
Also dr. K's placement seems pretty high, the eastern medicine is a thing, and ive only seen a section of his stuff, but in everything ive seen when asked about it, hes willing to explain in depth that he believes that its a helpful 'framework' for viewing some issues/remedies in mental health, BUT that many of the historical and present practices are wrong and that he thinks there should be some meaningful internal and external review of the practices to remove dangerous/ineffective ones and find helpful ones(the same way meditation and mindfulness come from spiritual traditions but have proveable utility in medicine and mental health today). But maybe hes more hardline in what i havent seen? But the willingness to say 'i like these ideas and i have anecdotal evidence some of them work, but they arent fully vetted and i want more research into whether these things work and if so how they can effectively be used' seems very unguru.
Dr. K was just officially reprimanded by the psychiatry board for being unprofessional. He’s awful and people give him too much wiggle room for the abject nonsense he peddles
A lot of that Eastern medicine is pseudoscience, not grounded on science, mostly traditions. It can offer relief for certain conditions if it's integrated with modern healthcare.
Guru Olympics hell yes. Brett Weinstein and Jordan Peterson must share the gold or i'll cry.
As well as Rogan, imo
Hey, found your channel through Destiny. I have to say, I really enjoy your content.
the reason i hate this tier list because i cannot really understand this guru-meter thing and people can be on the same tier with such a high intellectual disparity that makes me uncomfortable to just look at
Yeah but they're rating them on some kind of 'guru' factor, not intelligence :)
Tier Lists are done mainly for shits and giggles so I would not worry about it too much.
they have a episode on what their metrics on being a modern guru is
Peter Attia and Gwyneth Paltrow in the same tier 🥴
Being a guru is independent of intellectual capability. See Russell Brand
What about Andrew Tate? Sam Harris? Mearsheimer? Peter Zeihan? Matt Christman perhaps?
I do not think they did episodes on any of them except Harris. Mearsheimer is pretty bad lately but I do not think he goes beyond geopolitics.
That’s why they should never of spoken to Sam, he guru’ed them.
Andrew tate would be an interesting one
@@Alexandra-xu3si it might be a bit late but he is still spewing his stupid shit on the social medias so he deserves a gurometer treatment
Matt Christman could be a genuine guru I wish hom well. His history of the Mormons is pure brilliance imo.
I'm constantly laughing while watching. I love the breakdowns of the bullshit slingers in your content. Keep the great videos coming.
I think I should be glad that I don't know the majority of people in this tierlist.
I discovered Christopher on tv when I was a teenager in the 90's. And though I can't explain why, something in me said that I should trust anything that this person says. Mind you I couldn't understand anything he was saying at the time and so it wasn't that he was affirming any of my beliefs or intuitions. He just had this charisma about him that made me trust him. If I found out something I had believed opposed what he believed, I would instantly change my mind. I have probably listened, watched, and read as much Christopher material as anyone on the planet. And this includes finding a guy in England, in the pre-youtube days, who had a hundred hours of every public interview, debate, speech, etc that Christopher had ever done.
So yes, I would say there is something of a guruness there, even if it was never his explicit intention. He was also totally open about how he never passed up an opportunity to appear on tv, though he would contradict this statement later when he claimed that he refused to go on air to discuss the death of playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith.
Goddamn, I wanna decode all over a guru 😩
f r e a k y
ewww
Like Destiny but not obscene. Love that description :D
I loved this soooo much. "Remember Matt, it's vibe based"
Damn. No Destiny in the thumbnail. I almost didn't click!
If admitting that we are in fact a cult is what it takes; Definitely a cult!! DGGL
so true bestie 😎 🤙
Who the hell is the 70-90 distinct paradigms guy? That was amazing word salad. Yum 😂
Jordan Hall
would be fun to see older philosophy/psychology gurus in the next list. like alan watts, terrence mckenna, carl jung, etc. and an additional rating based on good and evil or one of those rankings that go from chaotic good to chaotic evil and lawful good to lawful evil
Late to the convo. But this would be a lot of fun.
You guys ever gonna do Curtis Yarvin aka Mencius Moldbug?
Great suggestion
I’d love to see a tier list based on your feelings towards these people.
How is Heather A tier? Without Bret she wouldn't have an audience, surely being a guru is more than just spouting nonsense you have to have an ability to attract an audience.
@@patheticpear2897 Fair but she does more heavy lifting than given credit for on DarkHorse. It is a two person enterprise.
Chris Williamson
totally full of crap
This is really great.
not the way I wanted to find out that one of my first favorite fic writer became a conspiracy theorist.
I feel like that's a very unitary couple.
A podcast that I enjoy Your show has similar vibes.
Discovered you via Sam Sedars recommendation
When did Sam Seder shout them out?
@@potatopotatow this was many weeks ago...they were doing a Weinstein segment and played a clip of their podcast and said they like the work that they do...
thank you for doing right by Sean Carroll.
Do Terence Mckenna! (If we're talking about our young days gurus)
This is an interesting video. I have my agreements and disagreements with the broad spectrum of these people. I think an interesting episode would be on how a respectable expert and a guru (in a negative sense) are different. How can I become an expert in my field without becoming a dubious life coach? How can I avoid going to the dark side, so to speak? I'd find a show like that helpful.
You guys are such gurus
Could you explain why Dave Rubin is on a lower ranking compared to say Kisin or Adams? Given Adams is described likewise as a pundit I would imagine Rubin would rank higher as a guru.
Hell yeah Mick West!
Can't believe you didn't include the OG modern guru, he of woo-woo fame, Deepak Chopra
Chomsky isn't at all a guru. He stays in his own lanes of linguistics/politics. He's in no way anti intellecthalist, no hocus pocus in his work. He's simply an academic/public intellectual. Secondly, Contrapoints, she shares many of the same characteristics as Chomsky. She's just a video essayist/public intellectual. Conversely, Joe Rogaines is totally an S tier guru, if only for his cult of personality, and the anti intellectualism is off the charts. He's the very meaning of a guru. Also don't forget his woowoo health guru aspect.
Plus the supplements grift
you need to loosen the criteria or people might complain that grifters are all right wingers
@@jake______ most of them are. There isn't much of a network for anticaptalist grifting, unless you're shilling for Russia, but most of those people happen to be right wingers
I was thinking "they best not talk shit about my boy Carroll", and they didn't 😂
Contrapoints did put out Justice Pt 2, embedded within her Envy video
Guys, can you do an episode on David Deutsch? He's not that well known as the other people you've covered so far, but he is an interesting case: He is academically accomplished, but also makes very strong claims about fields outside his expertise.
Deutsch would make a great guru episode agree
Agreed, he has that steamroller certainty in his correctness but he promotes some fairly esoteric & performatively edgy positions.
I’d like to see this as well.
YES
I think the Tier list really became ubiquitous around 2017, when the UA-cam channel “TierZoo” began and he started ranking animals.
Whether most of these guys are gurus depends on whether or not they have followers who put them in that position. Hitchens was just a bit loathe to admit defeat and was slippery for that reason. It was arguably his confidence and doggedness which made him such a good journalist. Douglas Murray looks genuine to me, is very capable of holding his own under serious interrogation and there is the added bonus that he is arguably correct in his central tenets. He is carrying on where Hitchens left off in some respects, in fact he discusses extant circumstances which are the very ones Hitchens warned Britain of.
Very disappointed the Decoders didn't know the meaning of "S-rank". Isn't one of them a Japanese living in Scotland?
Yeah cos one of them definitely looks Japanese.
I think you meant Welsh living in New Zealand ;)
I think you meant a Moroccan living in Afghanistan 🥰
@sathrielsatanson Would it bother you to tell us?
They seem a little sheltered and not worldly.
Can I ask why you use Indian/Hindu iconography in your logo even though most of these gurus are white?
Isn't it because the term "guru" comes from India?
@@asmodeuszdewa7194 guru in Hindi literally means teacher. 'guru' in the west and especially on this channel is used in a negative sense. So if most of these 'gurus' are white and from the west, why use Indian/Hindu symbols. What you're saying would imply using British symbology for all English words.
@@DS-ux9ld in English, guru means: "a religious leader or teacher in the Hindu or Sikh religion". Informally, it can also be used to describe people who give advice on a certain topic. And although they define the term differently, they were clearly inspired by the former definition, while making the logo.
Because India is packed with dodgy gurus who manifest vibuthi and various other objects and make all sorts of daft claims about their mystical powers. To say they only fool Westerners would be false as they predominantly cater to the local market. We call people like Russell Brand gurus because they model themselves on indian mystics.
@@DS-ux9ld I have seen some indian gurus and their characteristic isnt that they teach but manipulate crowds into believing they are being taught the secrets of the universe. This is what "secular guru" is referencing.
You spent how long hunting down square images of gurus? Have you heard of the modern technology of cropping?
Agriculture is at least 12,000 yrs old, it's not modern technology.
@@Costa_Conn:badumm tss:
@@gregorymurphy6115 You think manual resizing every image would have been quicker… ok 👍
@@decodingthegurus Hmm, I'll have to learn to code a program that can do that automatically and then make some money next time you guys do this. Or literally just make one real quick for the subject you are currently on and store it in a folder.
@@decodingthegurusnext time just crop without resizing and you can force everyone to guess based on just a nose, or just an eye, or just a little bit of neck fat
John Vervaeke, Peter Boghossian, Jonathan Pageau, Steven Bartlett,
Robert Greene, Alain DeBottom, Gabor Mate, Chris Williamson, Matthew Walker,
Stephen Fry, Rory Sutherland, Owen Jones, Tim Pool, Malcolm Gladwell, Ali Abdaal
David Pakman, Cenk Uygur, Ben Shapiro, Jimmy Dore... the list is nearly endless.
I am not sure about all people from the list but for first and third I would also vote. 👍🏻
It's interesting that you brought up Peter Greene. I would not consider him as guru. At least I don't see anything toxic about him.
@@PeterIntrovert "Amatour researcher in the heart of cognitive science".
Do you mean:
"An amateur researching the heart of cognitive science"?
Or...
"An amateur researcher, studying at the heart of cognitive science"?
Or something else entirely?
That list is a real mix with some having very little in common
Providing a clear criteria and weighting per criterion would have provided a better understanding of how you have arrived at your decisions. Particularly when trying to make sense of the miscellaneous group residing on Tier D. Enjoyed the commentary nonetheless.
Definitely definitive
I love this
Is Dr Brian Keating ever going to make it on the list?
Why does he give guru vibes
@@thomabow8949 have you watched a lot of his stuff?
Have you watched any of his videos?
@@thomabow8949
Brene Brown should totally be under Actually Good. She communicates a lot of sound evidence-based mental health practices. Yes she gets vibey with her style but she's actually good.
Vaush would be a good subject, he should be right up there w Destiny. Not much on conspiracism or anti intellectualism, but sheer ego would put him on the list, imo.
Really needs a tierometer to accompany the gurometer. This is supposed to be science after all.
I’ve never seen that clip of the three lads sitting on the couch. Holy moly, those guys love the smell of their own farts. Could put a picture of them on that couch next to a definition of grandiose smugness.
What is the S grade?
Should do one on Sabine Hossenfelder!
Can the Decoders do a video about when they predict they’ll hit puberty?
Matt Walsh would be a good addition, along with Trump, the guru of gurus, maybe beyond guru into full blown cult leader. Tucker Carlson would likewise be very high up.
JP is in SS tier
Underrated comment.
Lol, for sure. He might be the preeminent guru of our time. Total cult of personality and he's all over the damn place pontificating on nearly everything as if he's a completed renaissance man.
His chaos dragon daughter is S tier imho, not D smh
@@LukeMcGuireoides "the preeminent guru of our time" 🎯
Wonder where will our girl Des Tiny be! I'm betting on him being in the green
Can you guys cover Brittany Simon?
i do not know how rubin is below Yuval, Destiny or Hasan
Is it because he's a complete joke that no one takes him seriously and his grift doesn't work?
Yeah pretty much. He's an absolute joke
Dave Rubin? You should look at his history. He became a right wing grifter almost completely by accident, and only stuck to it because it was working.
Yep
Well idk if I agree w that rationale but at least there is one
I think purely by virtue of how obvious is grift is he should be placed higher. Because destiny and yuval and i imagine some of the others, while they are more successful, they aren’t really grifters. Idk sure I guess
Yes, he's not effective. He's more just bad take pundit.
Sam Harris wasn't on it
I can't believe you left off Curtis Yarvin. Massively influential, dangerously ideological. And what about Andrew Tate?
I see you didn't dare to include Sam Harris 😏
Should've had a Guru By Proxy for those who may or may not be dead but exist as selective memes on Tube and elsewhere with "10 minutes of XX OWNING..."
No Glen Loury? Or Candace Owens? Or Cornell West?
I like this.
Gary Vee should be on this list - he's one of the worst gurus
A like/dislike tier list would be fun
Wonder how many gurus will be outraged with their ranking
Hasan would be pleased to hear that he's higher up on the tier list than Destiny (noone tell him higher is bad)
Where is Sam Harris
@@socrat33z see notes!
@@decodingthegurus Thanks! Agree 100% on B, just sad I missed the discussion.
Depak and Tony Robinson are S++
Pretty surprising to me that you put Hasan and Destiny on the same tier just because they both have large, parasocial followings and stream.
Being a guru isn’t necessarily just a measurement of how silly or evil someone is, and the criteria itself isn’t just vertical.
they gave him a better ranking before he started trolling conservatives with shitposts recently
Hasan is evil and dumb
@@PoorEdwardyes, but hasan is making much more sweeping claims with zero evidence, which is what makes a guru
I don't think you should put that much stock into a tier list. They are aware of Destiny vs Hasan beef so I am sure they did that as a "hot take" clickbait.
I'll have to watch the hasan episode, because the "conspiratorial" side isn't exactly coming to the top of my head. Maybe I just throw it away in the background and ignore it when it comes up. I assume it's not being mistaken for some of his bad calls related to geopolitics.
Bert and Jordy for S category 😂
She ranking on the guru till I tier list
You should really expand your horizons to the get rich quick scheme gurus who sell their courses.
They do a lot more financial harm to their audiences than these guys, some of which have some very useful info
The Andrew tates, Iman Gadzhi's, Hamza's, Sebastian Giorgiu's, Jordan Welch's sell information that's freely available online for 500-1500/yr ...
Not to mention the ripple effects of up and coming wannabe random channels who are following in their footsteps who have even less credentials than these larger gurus and will do anything to convince people to buy their course!
I see you claim to arrange them on secular guruosity but why limit your audience?
Is Trump a guru? No one wants so badly to be one except maybe Lex Friedman.
Yeah absolutely. He's a right wing populist demagogue.
He's a total cult leader, beyond guru
Can anyone recognize what are the figurines to the left of Chris?
@@D.S.handle I can!
@@decodingthegurus please do :)
Best Fox News guru ... Hannity? Ingraham? Waters?
Hahahahaahahahaha. I feel you were pretty harsh on poor old Jaron Lanier. He strikes me as a pretty OK kind of person by today's standards overall
You should look at Richard Stallman
I would add Varveake for pseudointellectualism.
Pageau for playing Billy Madison in real life as religious leader.
IS joe rogan the guru creator?
The guru stamp of approval.
Ham Grandcock #1!!!
Why should gurus be normally distributed? That would mean very few small gurus, which would mean you could list them, like the few S tier gurus. Its more reasonable with an exponential distribution. Few big, many small, like with earth quakes.
Where is Sam Harris?
I don't see Daniel Schmachtenberger on here. That's good. I feel like Daniel came to fame through association with many gurus, but individually, he actually has a hell of a lot of substance, and is genuinely well researched, rather than a fountain of poetic nothing-burger abstractions the way many of his associate peers are.
@@user-ud7ko4cq1n He should have been there and I would put him beside Jordan Hall!
@@decodingthegurus Don't you think that's a bit of guilt-by-association? Obviously Hall is a clown, but Schmachtenberger actually has substance. His arguments extend from detailed, researched assessments on subjects. Not just narcissistic obscurist naval gazing. He hurt his brand for a few years by agreeing to surround himself with gurus, but he seems to be working more now with substantive dudes like Nate Hagens.
@@user-ud7ko4cq1nNope. I’ve seen a bunch of Daniel’s content. More substantive than Jordan Hall, but overall very similar to most sensemakers. Above Hall, below Vervaeke but all in same category.
@@decodingthegurus Other than the Hall/Wheal/Schmachtenberger debacle video (where Daniel was the least ridiculous), name one other video where Daniel gives you hardcore guru vibes? I'm not saying you're wrong, but in recent years, he's more associated with guys like Tristan Harris, Nate Hagens, Ian McGilchrist. I mean Sam Harris briefly tolerated Bret Weinstein around him. I don't think that means Sam and Bret should be lumped together forever.
@@decodingtheguruscurious, how would you have accessed Vervaeke and where would you have put him in the list?
Destiny beside Hassan? Are you kidding me?
im surprised sam harris was not considered
I really like Sam Harris and don’t think he’s a modern guru. But would have been interested where you would have put him on the tier list. Seems like he was intentionally left off…?
Read the notes 😉
Not really a modern guru, just a big piece of shit of a person and "intellectual".
He definitely is one. Not as bad as the others but still.
Like golf. Low score wins.
Should have had Kanye in there
UG Krisnamurti
I'm pretty sure the tier list came from super smash bros. fans.. so yes of course fknVideo games
This was almost interesting 🤨
why is Sam Harris so much higher then the other 3 of the 4 Horsemen? i dont get it (because of that meditation angle?)
where do you see sam harris?
@@najneindustrijaliziraniji read the description
I don’t know all the categories on their Gurometer, but I think the Horesemen are quite different to one another in their overall careers. The other Horsemen are much more straight academics, in terms of Dennet and Dawkins, and much more of a straight political commentator, in terms of Hitch. I think it’s Sam Harris’s position as a founding member of the IDW, rather than his position of a Horseman, that gives him a higher score on the Gurometer. He broke with the other IDW guys over their Covid conspiracism, so that makes him a lot less Guru than them. But those guys are all S or A tier. So he is between them and the other Horsemen.
@@willmosse3684 Right! Plus Sam has a whole interlinked politics, morality, determinism, no free will, Buddhist modernism, thing… to which he is very strongly attached.
@@decodingthegurus He does have an interlinked framework that he is very attached to. But, having this evening gone over your Gurometer criteria, and also listened to most of your interview with Harris from 5 months ago, I have to say that I definitely don’t think that he should be rated as highly as B. I would say maybe D, or maybe he’s not really a Guru at all. On the “vibe” check you use in this episode, I totally think he “feels” Guru-ish. And I disagree VERY strongly with him on a lot of things. But strictly on your criteria, I don’t know.
to be fair, there is nothing inherently wrong with an interdisciplinary approach, and there is in fact a natural connection between all of those topics you list. “Determinism” and “no free will” are almost different words for the same thing. And meditative introspection, part of what you term “Buddhist modernism”, directly relates to the examination of the presence or absence of free will. If thoughts and volitions are observed to just arise in consciousness, then where is the space for libertarian free will? It’s not the whole argument, but it’s certainly germane. And the presence or absence of free will directly feeds into the discussion of morality - how responsible is a criminal for his actions if there is no libertarian free will? Again, it’s not the whole topic. But it feeds into it in important ways. And then, morality directly feeds into any discussion of politics. We would hope to govern and legislate in a way that reflects our understanding of morality. So I’m not sure this really meets the Galaxy Brain criterion.
Now, I personally think Sam is pretty good on his secular Buddhist meditation stuff (I didn’t really think that Chris managed to land any salient criticism on that during your discussion, and I’ve thought about this topic a lot), on his free will stuff and on his moral philosophy framework (even if there may be holes in its underpinning). Where I think he goes horribly wrong is in his leap from his fairly insightful theoretical frameworks into their application to the real world - i.e. his politics. I think much of what he advocates will definitely not lead us to any mountain peaks in his moral landscape, but will have us mired is some pretty dark and dank valleys. To the point where I struggle to even listen to the guy these days. This is most poignant in, though not restricted to, his analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I could not bring myself to listen to the last the last 45 mins of your recent interview with him (and I dropped a longish critique of his whole framing of the situation under that video, which I would be interested to hear your thoughts on).
So whilst he certainly meets the self-aggrandising narcissism criterion, and perhaps touches on some of the other criteria, I would say only minimally on those. And there are some where I don’t think he meets them at all. I don’t think he uses pseudo-profound bullshit, for example, but is a very very clear communicator, and cares about that a lot. Which is why he had such trouble with Jordan Peterson’s PSB on the definition of truth. He certainly gave himself a Guru vibe by getting himself so interlinked with the IDW before breaking from it - that was a bad mistake. But actually analysing him against the criteria - I think not a guru…
I don't think the red scare people should be meaningfully different than destiny/Hasan, in terms of content of what is being said/asserted they def score a bit higher(more into pushing fringe science and conspiracy than destiny and even hasan even though they mask it under irony), the higher para social thing with fans seems to just be a function of streaming vs putting out a long form podcast, BUT they dedicated fans seem just as committed, just less likely to engage in direct interactions/less able to engage in a greater volume of content. Like by this logic any streamer is considerably more guru than any long form content maker no matter what they are saying/doing.
@@hrolfthestrange Broadly true but also Destiny and Hasan are somewhat outliers. I don’t think Ludwig is getting to C Tier!
Elon Musk is X tier. Lol
Rubin at D tier is the biggest miss IMO.