Elon Musk: The Techno Shaman

Decoding the Gurus

Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne

Social Sciences, Science, Leisure, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2022

⏱️ 147 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

So here we are rounding off 2022 with a Guru of the moment, Elon Musk.

Trust us, we want to stop hearing about him as much as you do but we have long had him scheduled as the finale for the tech season. Unfortunately, the Decoding the Gurus curse (most of the people we cover quickly become worse and spiral into conspiracism) seems to have become more potent. Now we don't even have to cover a Guru just announce that we will and the spiral occurs. And with Elon what a spiral it has been.

But we *try* not to dwell much on his recent antics and instead focus on decoding our chosen material. In this specific case, it is a recent wide-ranging interview conducted by a fellow billionaire and large Tesla investor, Ron Baron. This proved to be one of the most sycophantic interviews we have ever examined, which is a real achievement given the competition.

Musk himself is an interesting figure. Softly spoken, prone to mumbling, he can even seem self-effacing, and yet he is also a prolific hype man, prone to hyperbole, and self-mythologizing. Is he the master engineer and polymath he claims? The ultimate conman? And how has he become the guru for so many gurus? Join us as we try to disentangle the Elon puzzle box and see if there is actually anything interesting inside.

Oh and also Happy New Year! Remember to keep an eye out for those pesky Distributed Idea Suppression Complexes.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm going to Oh, Hello and a
0:27.0	welcome to Dakota The Guru's a podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist
0:30.6	listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer and we try to
0:33.4	understand what they're talking about.
0:35.0	Our professor Matt Brown, the psychologist, with me is Chris Kavina, he's the
0:39.1	anthropologist and how you going today Chris? It's the afternoon, it's balmy, it's summer and I am, it's winter where you are.
0:47.0	Christmas is upon us, it's the first of season, how you're feeling.
0:50.0	True, and recently I saw Home Alone the one and two so I'm in the whole day spirit I couldn't I couldn't be better literally
1:02.2	Fantastic unbelievable the people Actually, things are fantastic, unbelievable.
1:04.0	The period just before Christmas is always the best whenever you have young children
1:09.0	and a distant family to coordinate with. So yes, it's going all right, Matt, a little bit stressed, a little bit
1:17.6	stressed, but I can handle it. I can take it. Yeah, you can bear any burden, Chris. and I will tell people about it.
1:25.2	Oh, so I know you were wondering and I know that like most of the people listening were wondering
1:31.6	how is the nut thing going?
1:33.6	Oh, God.
1:34.6	People were like, you know, oh, that was great.
1:38.4	It was so informative, it's so on topic to mention that.
1:41.8	So I'll just tell you Matt, yeah, can see it in your eyes,
1:45.6	nuts, you know that a healthy snack, still enjoying them. They're still enjoying them.
1:51.2	They've become a part of my life in a way that I didn't disappear and I am still
1:56.6	a nut guy.
1:57.6	I'm a nut guy.
	...

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