In this episode, Matt and Chris take a look at one of the UK’s most compelling economic crusaders: Gary Stevenson, aka Gary’s Economics. A millionaire trader turned YouTube firebrand, Gary’s message is simple and potent: wealth inequality is spiralling, the ultra-rich are hoarding everything, and economists and politicians are either complicit or clueless.

Gary’s story has all the trappings of a mythic arc: from humble East London roots to Citibank’s trading floor, where he made millions betting against the poor during the financial crisis. Now he claims the system is so broken that only someone like him, working class and mathematically gifted, someone who entered the high-power world of financial trading and took on the system, could see it. As Gary puts it, a sort of economic Copernicus, who brought a revolutionary message that was dismissed by a stultifying orthodoxy.

With his righteous critique comes a hefty dose of swagger, whether it is in considering himself like a Usain Bolt of trading or in the frequent laments about how exhausting it is to be a lone voice of truth facing bad-faith hit pieces. Gary straddles an odd tension: self-effacing underdog one moment, saviour-on-a-soapbox the next. He rails against academia, dismisses journalists as clickbait merchants, and urges people not to heed critics, due to their ulterior motives.

Our hosts explore the contradictions of a millionaire revolutionary who's not even bothered but also a bit miffed the phone isn’t ringing; a tireless advocate for the poor but also someone who seems to frequently drop in his elite credentials and just how rich he is.

So strap in for a deep dive into charisma, critique, and class warfare economics. Is Gary the economic truth-teller we need, or a populist guru-in-the-making with revolutionary zeal and a finely tuned YouTube brand?

Sources

• Gary's Economics- Understand the Economy Part 3: Why is Inequality Ignored?
• Gary's Economics- Signing off: How close are we to winning higher taxes on the rich?
• Novara Media- Everything They Tell You About the Economy is WRONG | Aaron Meets Gary Stevenson
• Gary Stevenson (2024). The Trading Game: A Confession
• Financial Times: Gary Stevenson claims to have been the best trader in the world. His old colleagues disagree
• Financial Times: He made millions betting against economic recovery. Now he wants to fix things
• The Daily Mail's hit piece on Gary
• Reddit thread discussing Gary's Thesis
• Plain Bagel - The Canadian Housing Crisis Explained
• Patrick Boyle on the Pandemic Real Estate Bubble
• Asianometry on an...

We immerse ourselves in the dark waves of the discourse to bring you treasures beyond mere mortal ken.

Supplementary Material 27

00:00 Introduction & Australian Holidays

03:53 James Lindsay's New Revelations

07:20 Michael O'Fallon's Conspiracy Hipsterism

09:41 Trump, Bukele, and Transparent Conspiracies

11:53 The Whitehouse declares the Lab Leak is a FACT

14:42 The conspiracy leak treadmill: UFOs, RFK assassination, and lableak

21:26 The Rise of the Idiots: Grimes on Transformers Cinematography

29:17 Lex vs. Flint: The mask slips

33:21 The Iron Curtain falls on Lex's Subreddit

35:18 Subreddit Moderation Choices

41:46 Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan

46:36 Darryl Cooper's Nazi Apologetics, the Role of Experts and JAQs

57:25 Strategic Disclaimers & Convincing Apologetics

01:03:28 The Rogansphere and Media Power

01:07:30 Murray on the Lab Leak

01:12:19 Murray's Anti-Establishment Hypocrisy

01:19:10 Standards in Journalism

01:22:42 Alternative Media's Double Standards

01:28:33 Douglas Murray joins Sam Harris

01:29:26 The Psychology of Religious Extremism

01:36:04 Radicalisation and Extremism

01:41:24 Murray's 'Criticism' of MAGA

01:44:32 What is even the Right Wing?

01:55:11 What about Elon Musk?

02:05:40 AfD isn't that bad, and Elon has promoted Douglas too!

02:16:10 Rogan and the Moon Landing

02:17:16 Sam is still a bad judge of character

02:19:29 Isn't everyone a hypocrite?

02:23:16 Free Speech Debates

02:26:58 The role of Moderation

02:31:37 Outro

The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (2hr 32 mins).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Sources

• Sam Harris Episode 410 Douglas Murray: The Whole Catastrophe
• Joe Rogan Experience #2303 - Dave Smith & Douglas Murray
• Flint's post about Lex Fridman
• Grimes on Transformers' cinematography
• James Lindsay on being used by Nazis
• Nathan Barley on YouTube
• Whitehouse website on the Lab Leak
• Joe Rogan Experience #2307 - Tim Dillon

In this episode, Matt and Chris pour themselves a stiff drink and slip into the fever‑dream crossover of Jordan Peterson and Michael Shellenberger, a conversation that opens with the claim that Western Europe is now the single greatest threat to free speech; yes, croissants and GDPR apparently out‑authoritarian China and Russia. According to Shellenberger, we can now rest safe as free speech has been restored and “America Is Back!” thanks to God-Emperor Trump and the living avatar of honest utterance, Elon 'Horus' Musk.

Our hosts marvel as Shellenberger insists USAID is a rogue soft‑power leviathan that somehow staged January 6th, sabotaged the 2020 election, and deserves to be nuked from orbit... although he can’t quite prove any of that YET​. Alongside the conspiratorial drivel there is also a heavy serving of Peterson's obscurantist mythicism and dinner‑party anthropology as he explains how Hungary is a model democracy, the US nation beset by parasites, and that this is all inevitably connected to how people are not paying enough attention to Jesus​.

But that is not all! You will also learn about Manly Men vs. Gentlemen, Musk’s “move fast and break government” ethos, and the revelation that free speech is not a nice‑to‑have but a must‑have—unless you are a lawyer, journalist, or student on the wrong side of the Trump administration.

So buckle up for an hour of dystopian déjà vu, as two self‑styled rebel intellectuals morph into state propagandists, cheerleading every single action of Trump and Musk while lecturing the rest of us on free thought.

Sources

• “Trump, Musk, Kennedy: The Dawn of Transparency,” The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, Ep. 526.
• Shellenberger's Substack, including gems like "Why Trump’s Victory Is, For Millions Of Us, Cathartic" and "Both USAID And The CIA Were Behind The Impeachment Of Trump in 2019"
• Taibbi & Shellenberger testify to the House Judiciary Committee to help uncover "the Biden-Harris Administration's unconstitutional censorship campaign"
• Singal-Minded articles detailing Shellenberger's sloppy journalism and conspiracy theories