Decoding the Gurus

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.
We discuss what this kind of research might reveal about social intelligence across species: whether apes understand intentions, knowledge, and false beliefs; how their abilities compare with humans, dogs, and other animals; and why studying minds without language requires ingenuity, caution, and tolerance for participants who may simply decide the whole enterprise is beneath them.
There is also some discussion of the usual complications: small samples, difficult data, flexible analyses, replication, and the gap between a beautifully designed experiment and a result we should treat as settled fact. But the main story is the genuinely intriguing attempt to study Theory of Mind beyond humans.
Along the way, we discuss chimpanzee costumes, zoo life, dogs, and the disturbing possibility that crocodiles may be running more sophisticated cooperative hunting operations than most university committees.
*The full episode is available on Patreon (57 mins)*
00:00 Introduction
03:57 Chimpanzee Theory of Mind & Eye Tracking
13:03 Attention, Grabbing and Orientation
24:03 The Role of Memory in Anticipation
26:10 Revenge of the Researcher
31:21 Statistical Concerns
43:44 Comparative Psychology Thoughts
49:13 Non-climbing Tigers and Cooperative Crocodiles
51:20 Matt's New Friends and Outro
Relevant papers for the episode:
Kano, F., & Hirata, S. (2015). Great apes make anticipatory looks based on long-term memory of single events. Current Biology, 25(19), 2513-2517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.08.004
Kano, F., & Call, J. (2017). Great ape social attention. In Evolution of the brain, cognition, and emotion in vertebrates (pp. 187-206). Tokyo: Springer Japan.

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 this, we pause to consider Jiang’s status as a Beijing-based geopolitical commentator who manages to be just critical enough of Chinese surveillance to sound daring, but yet is most reliably focused on predictions of imminent Western collapse, American hubris, and the doom of the U.S. empire.
But the real journey begins when Jiang sets the geopolitics aside and invites us into Plato’s Allegorical Cave, updating it for the modern era by linking it to Korean television melodramas. Out come ominous black blocks, stacked into a metaphorical tower of global control: the military-industrial complex, the financiers, the World Bank, the WTO, the media, Hollywood, schools, universities, and culture itself. What started as “predictive history” devolves into an Alex Jones-style conspiratorial rant about international financiers, globalist bankers, controlled media, and brave alternative truth-tellers seeing through the mainstream lies.
The alternative media occupies a Schrödinger-like position in Jiang’s system: corrupted and controlled when it suits his narrative but also brave and rebellious when it is giving a platform to people like Jiang. Stephen Bartlett, meanwhile, fulfils his podcasting duty as a perfectly crafted avatar of the Diary of a CEO audience: curious, credulous and very receptive to the message that the system is rigged, the shadows are fake, and you, dear listener, are one of the brave truth-seekers with the courage to listen and look behind the curtain.
Finally, we also reach Cosmic Jiang. The bankers are at war with the tech bros. Reality is consciousness. Matter is vibration. We are all fragments of God returning to Source. Hermetic philosophy explains Plato. Kabbalah explains the Middle East. Israel is trying to force the hand of God. The world will end; paradise will return. It turns out all of that geopolitical analysis was actually just a sideshow...
So join us for the conclusion of Professor Jiang: a masterclass in massive domino-based reasoning, geopolitical dressing on bog-standard conspiracy theory, and the enduring appeal of intellectual junk food.
Sources
Diary of a CEO: Professor Jiang: World War 3 Is About To Begin, Let Me Explain!
Mehdi Hasan vs. “Professor” Jiang
Professor Jiang talking about the Nephilim and Other Such Stuff: The World Is a Prison – The Secret Meaning of God And Creation | Prof. Jiang Xueqin
Professor Jiang promoting creationism and denying evolution
The National Security Strategy of the United States Document

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 Stephen Bartlett, from Diary of a CEO, spares no expense in his endless quest to indulge every modern online crank, offering a grab bag of props as well as his usual thoughtful pauses and awe-inspiring requests for definitions. Thrill as the honorary professor performs as a grand seer and geopolitical strategist, complete with a tabletop world map, wargame prop pieces, whiteboard flowcharts, coloured chess sets, and a dramatic metal briefcase full of sealed predictions.
So get ready to experience his hit-parade of forecasts (Trump's 3rd term, endless war with Iran, eventual U.S. “loss”) along with his trademark conspiratorial mélange of real-ish facts, misstatements, and domino-chain inevitabilities. The end of Part 1 is a sign of things to come, featuring Jiang's post-apocalyptic advice on how the good people can rebuild society with the help of prophets and visionaries (AKA gurus) and soothe yourself with the knowledge that we are all ultimately just a God-derived fractal consciousness anyway.
<And if you can't wait, Part 2 is already available on the Patreon!>
Sources
Diary of a CEO: Professor Jiang: World War 3 Is About To Begin, Let Me Explain!
Mehdi Hasan vs. ‘Professor’ Jiang
Professor Jiang talking about the Nephilim and Other Such Stuff: The World Is a Prison– The Secret Meaning of God And Creation | Prof. Jiang Xueqin
Professor Jiang promoting creationism and denying evolution
The National Security Strategy of the United States Document

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
25:39 Moynihan agrees that Tucker Carlson is a Leftist
30:40 I don't really know what he has said...
37:38 When Taylor Lorenz met Brad Palumbo
41:24 Taylor is a Good Faith Person who is often misrepresented
44:32 Was Taylor cheering on the killing of healthcare CEOs?
51:16 Suggesting Targets or Providing "Context"
57:48 The Victimhood Pose
01:01:01 Selective "Understanding"
01:06:41 The Moral Grandstanding Escape Hatch
01:12:10 Strategic Ambiguity across the Spectrum
01:15:22 The Connecting Theme!
Links
Jordan Hall discussing his neo-Nazi interview with David Fuller: Sensemaking, Gatekeeping & the Propertarians, Jordan Hall
Sensemaking & Gatekeeping: Talking with Fascists
Jordan Hall’s Markdown Tweet
Dave Rubin Clip of him coping over his Jubilee Performance
Batya Ungar-Sargon and the Status Revolution (Members Only #328)
Brad CONFRONTS left-wing star journalist Taylor Lorenz!!
DTG- Jordan Hall: Sensemaking, or the superficial pitter-patter on the neocortex?
Taylor Lorenz: 'Somebody needs to do it'

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
28:47 Bonus Round
33:04 Guru Binary Scores
37:18 Outro