Special Episode: Interview with Robert Wright on crackpots, gurus, and modern media ecosystems

Decoding the Gurus

This week we welcome the author, journalist, and podcaster Robert Wright. Robert wrote the popular (and provocative!) book 'Why Buddhism is True' and has hosted many interesting discussions and debates at bloggingheads.tv, which he co-founded.

We had a wide ranging discussion that touched on a vast array of topics including: the Weinsteins & their relative crackpot ratings, alternative & Mainstream media ecosystems and how they feed into guruism, what are gurus anyway (and are they all bad), Sam Harris and cognitive biases, whether Bob is a Buddhist Modernist, the extent to which meditation is a form of cultural conditioning, if wokism is really taking over America, and whether Matt & Chris' actually hate evolutionary psychology or not.

Robert offers a unique perspective, displays a lot of good humour and patience, and indulges our ongoing fetishism of self deprecation culture. So join us for a suitably meandering Irish-Aussie-Americo conversation that involves only the prescribed amount of mutual backpatting!

P.S. We promise the Gad Saad episode is coming soon!

Links

• Bob's Book 'Why Buddhism is True'
• 'Is Eric Weinstein a Crackpot' on Bob's Non-zero Substack
• Bob's Interview with Tim Nguyen for The Wright Show
• Bob's article for Wired on Sam Harris & Tribalism (the one that got him cut off!)
• The Crackpot Index by John Baez