Interview with Dan Friesen from Knowledge Fight on Alex Jones, the Sandy Hook Trial, and conspiracy ecosystems
Decoding the Gurus
Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2022
⏱️ 135 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A special crossover episode (long anticipated- at least by us) with one-half of the Knowledge Fight podcast. Specifically, we have Dan Friesen on to enlighten us about all things Alex Jones, the recent trial with the Sandy Hook parents, and to compare notes regarding gurus and conspiracy theorists. Not to mention to give Chris the chance to demonstrate his inner fanboy!
Dan is a guy with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Alex Jones and some very astute insights into conspiracy psychology. In fact, Matt and Chris think he might be most accurately considered as something of a rogue anthropologist doing deep ethnographic observation of the InfoWars ecosystem. Dan, meanwhile, maintains he's just a guy! Either way, Dan and the Knowledge Fight podcast are definitely our kind of bag. We hope you too enjoy the conversation and there is plenty of Knowledge Fight episodes (700+) if this leaves you wanting more.
Also, in this episode, we discuss Sam Harris' recent online travails, Jordan Peterson's appearance on Lex, and at the end of the episode, Matt finally learns what the podcast is really about!
Links
- Knowledge Fight podcast
- Jordan's live-tweeting of the trial
- Alex Jone's trial highlight
- Knowledge Fight's post-trial review episode (712) with the Sandy Hook parents' trial lawyers
- Article on Knowledge Fight in the New York Times
- Dan & Jordan on CNN
- Article on that Paul Joseph Watson audio recording
- Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning | Lex Fridman Podcast #313
- Sam Harris' appearance on Triggernometry
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're going to. Hello and |
| 0:25.0 | welcome to Decoding the Guru's the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer |
| 0:31.0 | and we try to understand what they're talking about. |
| 0:33.2 | I'm Professor Matt Brown with me is Associate Professor Chris Kavanaugh, he's the |
| 0:36.4 | anthropologist on the psychologist and we are here, we are not queer but we're not going anywhere we're going to be |
| 0:44.6 | talking about guru stuff a Chris that's that's right you can't get rid of us can take |
| 0:49.1 | us down that easily you tried you tried to cancel us. Uncanceable. |
| 0:54.0 | Uncouncilable. |
| 0:55.0 | Yeah, that's always a good thing to |
| 0:58.0 | for why at people on life. |
| 0:59.0 | Just to dare people. |
| 1:00.0 | Yeah, they never respond to that. |
| 1:02.0 | No, no, we're fine. |
| 1:04.0 | We're above board, we're not problematic in any way, shape or form. |
| 1:08.0 | Well, how are things in your neck of the woods, Chris, what's been going on in the Guru's |
| 1:11.8 | sphere from your vantage point? |
| 1:13.7 | Sam Harris had a kerfuffle because he said it was fine if people didn't give a |
| 1:22.0 | crap about the Hunter-Biden thing. |
| 1:23.7 | And he also, he worded something badly |
| 1:26.7 | because he said, like, if there was a conspiracy |
| 1:30.0 | to hide damaging information, that that would be fine as long as Trump didn't get elected. |
| 1:36.7 | So he said various things and he said it on trigonometry and they have a MAGA inclined audience so the kind of MAGA leaning side of the heterodox fear got very upset. |
... |
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