Decoding The Gurus
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Gurometer: Sean Carroll
🕑 Added 2024-03-03 23:10:35 +0000 UTCGiven all the terrible habits we documented, we are sure everyone can anticipate how extreme this score will be and we can confirm you will not be disappointed. Putting Sean through the Gurometer, almost broke the hinges off and he emerges as a record-scoring guru. Join us to find out how and for some speculation about the potential sex bias in our gurus.
Comments
TheKraken
Not really secular gurus but how about Margery Taylor-green or Suella Braverman?
SHOUNAK SARKAR
I totally get what you are saying about Matt about the differences between a Clive Palmer (the QLD mining billionaire) and Pauline Hanson, despite them sharing the same politics. Palmer just comes across as very Trumpian, I think of him as our redneck Aussie Trump haha! So maybe what you two are saying is that higher levels of testosterone make a crucial difference into how toxic a guru is. That's the DTG Revolutionary Theory :) Publish a paper on it.
Adam Sher
I think praxeology and van mises is either highlights a contradiction of objectivism or an odd conclusion. The success of Rearden’s steel after his competitors’s products fail in Atlas Shrugged is a demonstration of empiricism (and some desperation) and by contrast the failure of the government rests on it pursuing its economic theory in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I’m not sure I’m using the terms praxeology and empiricism correctly Separately, I recall reading a recent blowup in the Libertarian party because the Von Mises orthodox members tried to take over the party and refused to compromise with smaller l libertarians. Bickering into even smaller relevance as a political movement.
Christopher Kavanagh
Selling T-shirts is fine! It's 'excessive profiteering'.
Jamison Shipley
hitchens and sagan are dead too. but there are plenty of living gurus to choose from.
Roland Weber
He must be running ads on some platforms (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Youtube?), though I don't remember hearing one on the public RSS feed. In an older AMA, he said that ads generate about as much revenue for him as the Patreon supporters.
Ymirsdreams
Interestingly, Ayn Rand's whole philosophy is based on a rhetorical trick of deliberately making a category error: The whole phloppyfy is based on 'A=A'. Identity is fundamental and inarguable, therefore the only entity a person may speak too with meaning is themselves, therefore selfishness is the only logical and effective way to behave. This is a category error of conflating ontology (identity) with epistemology (what one can know). She leant heavily on Von Mesis for her economic arguments after than, and a lot of Objectivists whole heartedly embrace Praxeology and free market economics as a result. Edit: not to be confused with Von Mew-sis, the flea market fur-losopher, whom lots of cats cite for their selfish behaviour.
Roland Weber
IIRC, you did cover a dead guy or two in older episodes.
Roland Weber
Sean Carroll does sell T-Shirts, so you could have given him a 2 on profiteering 😉 https://www.teepublic.com/stores/sean-carroll
Jake
Sean is pro many worlds, and promotes it often on his podcast. I think he always does it in a reasonable way, not guru like at all. Wikipedia has a section on how mainstream a view it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds#Polls .
Ben Godek
The maga movement has produced Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert, so women can definitely break into that populist blowhard politician space! As for secular gurus, I’ve wondered if Camille Paglia would qualify? She might be a bit too obscure to cover, but I remember she did an interview with Jordan Peterson that was quite galaxy brained.
Adam Sher
Ayn Rand would have rated highly on the gurometer in her day. The book It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand was a pretty fantastic account of how she cultivated a following, blackballed her own team, and fought her allies. All of which helped keep objectivism and the young libertarian movement from wielding direct political power.
Christopher Kavanagh
Ayn Rand is dead and Ann Coulter is a good shout but more of a partisan political pundit.
Jamison Shipley
In Sean's episode interviewing Stephen Wolfram he mentioned he was working on a sort of theory of everything. He wasnt bragging about it though. Secular female gurus could be Ayn Rand or Ann Coulter.
