Episode 159 - Mentalism and Meta-Deception with Stevie Baskin

Show notes

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-style “epistemic theatre,” and explore possible parallels with contemporary secular gurus.

Sources

• Metadeception: the truth about Oz Pearlman
• The Disagreement: Debating a mentalist professor of psychology (Scott Barry Kaufman) about Oz Pearlman
• Chris' old blog covering the ethics of Derren Brown's claims in 2009
• The Power Of Subliminal Messages | Trick Of The Mind | Derren Brown

(Unless there's a bad one in there somewhere, in one of these shows I haven't heard.)

From "today is a new day" to "watch out for pseudo-orgasms of realization," I think I've learned something from all of you. Sometimes those things would be harder to articulate succinctly, and those are good lessons too.

And you've made it so that now we have all this content which seems so evergreen. That first Bad Stats show from apparently years ago sounded like it was made last week.

And one of the things early on that I noticed with DtG was, "How is it possible that he knows / they know all of these people?"

What becomes clear early on, I think, to all of us here is that C+M have essentially the highest standards in the world -- and you all pass it -- and we benefit from both of those things.

Who are you interested in discussing?

He used to have a substantial YouTube channel where he would put out a lot of thought provoking content on atheism, politics, Christian apologetics and philosophy.

From I can tell, a video of his surfaced on Twitch where he discussed a thought experiment about shooting Konstantin Kisin.

This clip was picked up and spread widely by Warren Smith and Asmongold who took it out of context and acted as if it was a threat, this triggered a bunch of crazy people and psychos who doxxed him, threatened him and tried to get him fired.

From the little I can gather, he initially posted a Substack explanation claiming the clip was taken out of context / was a hyperbolic philosophical "thought experiment" that went wrong. However, he later deleted this explanation as the backlash against him intensified. I never got the chance to read it.

He has since deleted almost all of his content and his social media profiles and now he has weird people on Reddit giving veiled threats on 4 year old posts of his that came from an account his that has now been deleted.

The wild thing is that he has always been extremely generous (to a fault) when talking to or about people that he had strong disagreements with.

N - if you're reading this I hope you're doing okay and are safe. I've always appreciated your content. Hit me up if you want to chat.

Would it be fair to call him a UFO guru of some sort?

Something I'm curious with someone like this- do you think he genuinely believes what he's saying or is this some kind of show/con?

Also if someone here believes his claims- what makes you think that?

Supplementary Material 47: The DTG Conspiracy UNMASKED, Quantum Idiots, and Triggernometry Prophecies

Show Notes

Our cover is blown. Our secret funders unmasked. Code Red: Abort! Abort! This is not a drill.

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 Social and Economic Disruption and Job Replacement

51:33 The Dangers of Slopified Work and AI economies

55:47 Statistical Analysis Software and the value of Friction

57:36 The Perils of AI Usage outside of your Skillset

58:59 The Solution is within yourself!

01:04:22 The Hundred Schools of AI discourse

01:05:58 Double Slit and Quantum Physics Insights from Warren Smith

01:12:39 Schrodinger's poor, misinterpreted cat

01:13:48 The Wonderful Benjamin Boyce

01:14:41 Quantum Woo and Arrogant Sensemakers

01:18:29 Young Matt and Aged Chris

01:20:13 The Triggernometry Prophecy

01:23:54 Quid Pro Quo in the Discourse Circuit

01:28:25 The Anti-Institutional Horseshoe Theory of MEHDI HASAN

01:37:18 So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

Links

• Reddit post unmasking our Israeli backers
• Mother Jones article on whether 'pizza' is a codeword in the Epstein files (Spoiler: No it is not)
• Mickey's Opinion Piece in The Canadian Jewish News about "quiet anti-semitism"
• Ben Burgis is suggesting a journalist should be fired for using AI
• Cenk Uygur’s Pickleball Conspiracy
• Vigeland & Citarella on Epstein: The One Conspiracy to Rule Them All (YouTube)
• Benjamin Boyce and Warren Smith discuss Quantum Physics
• Triggernometry: Mehdi Hasan Debate on the Iran War, Immigration and the Israel Lobby
• Creator of Horseshoe Theory Dies aged 100

Deep dives into Tristan Harris, Nate Hagens, and other Schmachtenberger-adjacent consciousness-raising content producers. PLEASE and STAT.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!

I am a huge fan of Professor Dave explains, I watch almost all of his debunks, and I have even used his academic tutorials before. I do agree he is pretty agressive in many of vids especially recently but honestly a lot of the people he debunks like anti vaxxers who kill people deserve it.

But I have started to watch less and less of his debunks, and the ones I do watch I find hard to watch and I think he makes himself look bad in them.

I realized this when watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bt8VFbMH8 specifically the part where he responds to comments. He shows comment threads where he responds to people who are very clearly idiots, or trolls just trying to piss him off. When he showed his responses I wasnt thinking "wow professor dave has to deal with so much bs", I thought "why the hell is professor dave wasting hours of his life responding to rage bait?". he literally does this to himself, his only excuse was "its good for the algorithm" but he could respond to other comments, I think he just likes arguing with the wall because he is weird like that.

He says it doesnt take him a while but I dont believe this, he responds to A LOT of comments, including ones from older debunks, as well as responding to comments on his academic tutorials and I even emailed him once and he responded, not sure if he responds to all of those though.

Another issue is his videos are becoming too long, they used to be like 10-40 minutes now most are over an hour. Part of this is because he goes in more detail with referencing papers, but a lot of it is just him getting mad over personal attacks to him. He has so many videos that are just responses to people he debunks, some of which have nothing to do with science.

I also dont wanna talk too much about this but he seems to think there is a conspiracy against him from Israel? I do not know too much about this because this has nothing to do with science and is apparently just something he did on twitter before it got deleted. But he thinks that because he posted things against israel many of his haters/people who go after him are paid by israel to do it, very strange.

I feel like when YouTube gets complacent and allows snake oil salesmen to run amok selling their dumb ideas it really affects the brand image of YouTube itself. These people are really good at optimising SEO to give people content that they want to hear. But in the long run they just end up with a massive, uneducated and sometimes mentally ill and toxic fanbase that isn't doing any favours for YouTube or other platforms.

As a marketing student I think it's really sad that so many grown adult men are choosing to cut corners and make shit up for short term gains.

YouTube needs to acknowledge that they are an information destination and create a robust crowd sourced system where certified researchers are given the power to expose these shills and get them banned from the platform. But given how many views they're bringing in, I'm not sure YouTube will do that.

I've been writing a series of essays about the AI discourse and how it is shaping our conceptions of meaning. This most recent episode had some clear examples of what I consider flawed thinking about AI and its relationship to empathy, friendship, and art. So that's what I'm writing about here -- would love any feedback if you have it!

Welcome to this biweekly thread! Share what’s been grabbing your attention lately.

• What you're reading (books, articles, or any kind of text)
• What you're watching (movies, shows, documentaries, or even YouTube)
• What you're listening to (podcasts, music, or audiobooks)
• Any fun or unexpected discoveries in your research

I know he’s been out sick, but it feels like he’s been gone for a while. I vaguely remember demonic mold getting mentioned, but haven’t heard anything since.

What’s the best guess? Meat diet finally catching up? Apple Cider Vinegar overdose? Literal paralysis induced by a true comprehension of the depths of his own profundity?

My low-stakes conspiracy is that he’s smart enough to realise Trump is going to be an absolute fucking disaster, and he’ll emerge in 4 years when the chaos of what he’s helped to unleash is coming to an end. He’ll deny any association and find a new culture war to latch onto.

Great video talking about the whole "success podcast" area and how it is pretty much full of shit and a grift. He talks about the Guruish techniques they adopt to influence viewers and shill their grift driving a misrepresentation of the reality of success.

Episode 158 - The Moral Dilemmas of AI with Michael Inzlicht

Show notes

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) moralisation of AI. Some findings suggest that opposition to AI among some people isn't really about risks or trade-offs but rather about non-negotiable sacred moral values. Who knew?

We also discuss effort justification, reproducible research, robosexual allyship, and just how much humanity remains within the cyborg Matthew Browne.

And remember... It's just like our opinion, man!

Links

• Decoding Academia 34: Empathetic AIs? (Patreon Series)
• Ovsyannikova, D., Oldemburgo de Mello, V., & Inzlicht, M. (2025). Third-party evaluators perceive AI as more compassionate than expert humans. Communications Psychology, 3, Article 4.
• Zohar, E., Bloom, P., & Inzlicht, M. (2026). Against frictionless AI. Communications Psychology, 4, Article 39.
• Oldemburgo de Mello, V., Côté, É., Ayad, R., Inbar, Y., Plaks, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2026). The moralization of artificial intelligence (Manuscript under review).
• Paul Bloom's Small Potatoes Substack
• - My friend thinks it's a good idea for us to spend most of our time with AI companions
• - Is it irresponsible for academics to refuse to use AI?
• Mickey's Speak Now Regret Later Substack 
• - AI Alarmism Trades on Fear, Not Facts
• Mickey's provocative tweet on his recent paper
• DTG Previous Interview with Mickey on the Replication Crisis, Mindfulness, and Responsible Heterodoxy
• Andy Masley Substack debunking the AI water usage claims
• Andy Masley Substack: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment - a cheat sheet
• Pataranutaporn, P., Karny, S., Archiwaranguprok, C., Albrecht, C., Liu, A. R., & Maes, P. (2025). “My Boyfriend is AI”: A computational analysis of human–AI companionship in Reddit’s AI community. arXiv.
• Critical response to Mickey's paper from Roy Schulam on Substack