The hosts of the podcast Decoding the Gurus developed the Gurometer, which is “not a scientific instrument, not a psychometric scale, not a revolutionary theory.” Rather, it’s a fun analysis developed by psychologist Matt Browne and cognitive anthropologist Chris Kavanagh.
By guru we refer to the standard definition of “an influential teacher or popular expert” but our specific focus tends to be the subset of gurus who make liberal use of ‘pseudo profound bullshit’ referring to speech that is persuasive and creates the appearance of profundity with little regard for truth or reference to relevant expertise. The recurring characteristics identified collectively trend towards negative traits, so a high score on the gurometer could be regarded as identifying ‘bad’, potentially exploitative gurus who produce ersatz wisdom: a corrupt epistemics that creates the appearance of useful knowledge, but has none of the substance.
1. Galaxy-brainness is an ironic descriptor of someone who presents ideas that appear to be too profound for an average mind to comprehend, but are in truth reasonably trivial if not nonsensical. Gurus often present themselves as fonts of wisdom, and it is an all-encompassing kind of knowledge that tends to span multiple disciplines and topics.
I ask Grok to apply the Gurometer to various pundits:
* Richard Spencer
* Victor Davis Hansen
* Matt Walsh
* Luke Ford
* Mark Levin
* Curtis Yarvin
* Auron MacIntyre
* Douglas Murray
* Tucker Carlson
* Jordan Peterson
