A guru can seldom agree with the establishment because it is crucial to their appeal that they are offering unique insight, a fresh hot take, that is not available elsewhere and may be repressed or taboo. The guru’s popularity will obviously benefit if this iconoclastic view happens to coincide with the prejudices or intuitions of their lay followers. Thus gurus are naturally drawn to topics where there is a split between the expert consensus and public opinion. […] After all, if a guru is merely agreeing with an expert consensus on a topic such as Covid, then there is less reason to listen to the guru rather than the relevant experts. Thus the guru is highly motivated to undertake epistemic sabotage to disparage authoritative and institutional sources of knowledge. There is a trade-off where the more the guru’s followers distrust standard sources of knowledge such as that emanating from universities, the greater the perceived value that the guru provides. This tendency is at odds with a guru’s natural tendency towards self-aggrandizement, which may involve emphasizing or inflating their even limited academic intellectual recognition, which results in some amusing contradictions. They will also strategically utilize ambiguity and uncertainty within their criticisms, providing themselves with the means to walk back claims that prove wrong or attract criticism or to enable them to highlight disclaimers. This dynamic of sabotaging other sources of wisdom is also evident in their fractious relationships with other gurus, with whom they may often have alliances of convenience but are also strongly incentivized to compete with.