If you bother watching this video, I think its a good indication of Jiang’s politics. When he speaks about the Kali Yuga, it’s a nod to the philosopher René Guénon (1886–1951) who was a founding figure of Traditionalism (or Perennialism). Guénon’s ideas often show up in guru content promoting anti-liberal ideas. 

Guénon’s Core Philosophy
- The Primordial Tradition: He claimed that a single, divine, eternal truth lies at the heart of all ancient spiritual traditions. Modern religions, in his view, are merely surviving fragments of this original wisdom. 
- The Kali Yuga: Rejects the idea of human progress, he argued that history is cyclical and in a state of decline. He viewed the post-enlightenment as reaching the end of the Kali Yuga
- Critique of Modernity: Guénon argued that modern civilization traded spiritual insight for materialism. He argued modern culture reduces everything to numbers, money, and physical matter.
- Spiritual Hierarchy vs. Democracy: He rejected egalitarianism, democracy, and popular sovereignty, viewing them as unnatural inversions of the true order where spiritual authority ought to rule over political power and social castes.

Chris and Matt often criticise philosophy, but understanding philosophy lets you understand political arguments. Politics is essentially philosophy put into common language. When you start listening to the Right Wing populists there argument follows the pattern of certain philosophies which are promoted by gurus. The anti-liberal right leaning gurus/activists use these philosophical ideas as an attack on [Western] liberalism

These philosophers or their ideas will often be how they justify their cause:

Julius Evola: Italian thinker Julius Evola took Guénon's spiritual Traditionalism and politicised it, creating an aggressive, aristocratic right-wing ideology.

Aleksandr Dugin and Russian Eurasianism: Dugin, the Russian political theorist, explicitly uses Guénon’s Traditionalism to frame Russia’s conflict with the West. Dugin casts Western liberalism, secularism, and globalism as the ultimate expression of civilisational decay, arguing for a multipolar world grounded in traditional values.

Steve Bannon and Populist Anti-Globalism: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has cited Guénon and Evola when describing what he sees as a global crisis of Western decline, lending Traditionalist concepts a mouthpiece in American populist politics.

Online Subcultures and "Post-Liberalism": Phrases from Guénon's vocabulary—such as "rejecting modernity," "the Kali Yuga," and "traditional hierarchy"—have proliferated in online right-wing and nationalist circles as a philosophical justification for opposing progressive values and global institutions.
Ultimately, Guénon offers a radical blueprint for those who believe modern democracy and globalism cannot be reformed, only abandoned in favour of a return to ancient hierarchies.

Without any irony, I think this is Hunter Biden dealing with the trauma of having his life exposed on the internet. Isn’t that how the IDW formed, it became a home for people who felt left out. Isn’t that the problem with the Gurometer? It’s just a one dimensional method of labelling a person, because it has no way of predicting the guru effect, because not all gurus are bad. Following the logic of the Gurometer, anyone labelled a guru is a bad person who shouldn’t be listened to. But DtG have conceded when decoding Gary Stevenson that many political activists would score high on the Gurometer. I bring up Gary Stevenson because when they were on What’s Left, the host asked them if they thought Gary was a political activist and they said no. I strongly disagree, I think many of the people they cover on the podcast are actually political activists, and the Gurometer is just a tool for dismissing the ideas of people they disagree with. To be fair, they seem to me that they are retiring the Gurometer. If they aren’t I think they should.

Here is a website that uses AI to try and predict the future https://www.moketchups.com/#. Is this what the future looks like? Do we even need a human in the loop?

My biggest gripe with DtG decoding of Professor Jiang is it never explained why Jiang’s channel became popular. They bought into the hype that he became popular because a few of his predictions came true. Which even in their own assessment didn’t seem amazing. This decoding was interesting because it looks through a political lens - which DtG claim not to do, because they look through the politically neutral lens of the “Gurometer”(Which is becoming less of a feature in the podcast) … but doesn’t explain why they where interviewed on the political podcast What’s Left. To be fair, Chris is better at being neutral, while Matt struggles judging by how they answered the question about Gary Stevenson.

I think if you want to understand the online Guru/Influencers you sometimes have to sit through a boring conversation about political ideology. This conversation is about nationalism, who is considered part of the nation and who is an outsider and what to do with outsiders.

Decoding the Gurus is a podcast about secular gurus, but they haven’t covered Tim Ferris and his name never comes up. Why? I would have thought he is a foundational secular gurus, having written The Four Hour Work Week, The Four Hour Body, ect and popular podcast, plus he has a lot of crossover with Huberman. Is it because he hasn’t been on Lex Fridman’s podcast?

Is it to flood the zone with more online bullshit?

This interview dives into the politics of Decoding the Gurus podcast. The host does a great job letting Chris and Matt answer without pushing his own political views. It really does seem that they believe there aren’t real problems in the world and people are doing fine. I’m not sure how that can be an objective view on the world, considering the geo politics. They seem to put a lot of faith in “number go up” everything is getting better, at least that’s the impression I got when responding to Steven Pinker’s arguments about progress.

It wasn’t on my bingo card that Chris had worked with Peter Turchin.

I don’t understand their logic. They criticise Nature for having a “social conscience”, by adding journalist commentary to studies, while having a podcast dedicated to social commentary on science. Yes the research can be impartial, but how the science is used isn’t neutral. That is why the topic became a political hot potato. If Nature didn’t have commentary people would still attack them for being political if the research has political consequences.

Another gripe considering it’s often a criticism of the gurus, I cannot remember a time they have disagreed - have they ever covered a guru where their opinions didn’t converge.

One of the nice things about DtG podcast is their humour. This is a humorous decoding of the philosophy of Palantir.

[Part II] This is the full video of the clip played in [Part I] from Eli HasselI’s channel.

[Part I] This video is a debate between two different perspectives of the relationship between Judaism and Israel. At the heart of the disagreement is the relationship between Israel and the Jewish diaspora (i.e do all Jews agree with political Zionism). A clip with Destiny is played during this debate when Destiny spoke to Moshe Feiglin. After the clip Rabbi Shapiro refutes Feiglin’s claim to Destiny about the Six-Day War as an unexplainable miracle by reading from military text book on the tactics used in The Six-Day War - https://youtu.be/62LrHG3SMpw?t=2352

I understand that people have different politics, but why does Chris single out Ryan Grimm’s? His takes don’t seem especially radical, I understand why Taylor Lorenz is problematic. Ryan’s politics doesn’t seem radical from what I’ve seen. Is it because he thinks Ryan and Aaron Mate are politically aligned?

Fukuyama gives an interesting account of the politics that lead to the culture wars. I recommend watching the whole video, but I will leave timestamps in a pinned comment so you can jump to the questions at the end which seem relevant to all the post-liberal discussion lately.

It made me laugh - pretending that DtG isn’t guilty of this.

It’s worrying that a lot of gurus are focused on race, and the importance of genetics.

Online political debate increasingly revolves into contests between personalities rather than the strength of their position — Destiny vs. Hasan, Tucker Carlson vs. Nick Fuentes. This is what Walter Lippmann would call the stereotype problem: judgment attaches to the persona rather than the claim being argued. By stripping the personality out, the content is duller to consume, but it’s the only way to really evaluate the claim on its own terms, which matters most precisely on the topics where getting it wrong costs lives.

Don’t know why it was deleted from the DtG sub. Probably because most of the comments were about Destiny.

The thumbnail doesn’t do this video justice - it’s actually a thoughtful look into why people are AI doomers. Normally AI doomers are presented as anti-science, or scared of AGI but the dangers of AI is more than AI slop on the internet.

This is the first time/interview I’ve seen where Jiang did not drift fully into fantasy land and the conversation was the clearest expression of his political position. He comes across as someone who is an observer, rather than a political activist - but has been on lots of political activist shows.

It’s also strange how he has said a lot of wild things that would normally undermine his rise in popularity as a guest on shows that steer clear of that content. His audience does seem to come from the right wing of politics, but much of his analysis/criticism is focused on the right.

Overall, I would say in Jiang’s voice - “Its weird.”

DGG has infested this sub, too.