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jordan peterson


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. He's talks on religion have actually moved me slightly from the Sam Harris end of things

Why? its so uncompelling. You can find moral lessons everywhere, from the bible to the walking dead, why privilege one religion when you can find moral truth everywhere.

 

If you follow his train of thought on this you will quickly realize he wants you to give up sovereignty over your life and give it to Christianity, he doesn't trust you to find moral truth in places other than the bible so he wants to put you on a Christian leash (which goes against his ideologues rants but whatever we are all hypocrites i guess)

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. He's talks on religion have actually moved me slightly from the Sam Harris end of things

Why? its so uncompelling. You can find moral lessons everywhere, from the bible to the walking dead, why privilege one religion when you can find moral truth everywhere.

 

If you follow his train of thought on this you will quickly realize he wants you to give up sovereignty over your life and give it to Christianity, he doesn't trust you to find moral truth in places other than the bible so he wants to put you on a Christian leash (which goes against his ideologues rants but whatever we are all hypocrites i guess)

 

 

yeh i get you.... im only moved slightly towards his thinking because i do see the same problems you outlined. But the general idea that that religions are a evolutionary  attempt to offer a moral framework thats sort of transcendent is kind interesting - even if they fail in extremes sometimes. Im not saying I buy his theories outright but im listening a hell of a lot more than the usual debaters of Harris etc.... but yeh, its probably all pants lets face it!

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Wow, watmm shooting up some flak for this guy, I must say I'm rather surprised.

 

He is not alt-right, and he is definitely not a holocaust denier. How that came about, I have no idea, unless you're generalizing and didn't watch a single lecture carefully.

Jordan's theories are based on a very wide horizon and he is definitely trying to set a bigger picture of things, which I think is very rare in today's intellectual sphere where academics get stuck inside their specializations and mentor-induced bubbles (which is, unfortunately, a very PC move in a complete self-interest to those who practice it). Such compartmentalization of expertise is a huge problem in today's society, where important debates are getting narrowed down, causing more disparate views that are not constructive in any way and are basically allowing for extreme theories and alt movements to be generated in the first place. Kind of like why it is important to truly understand guys like Nietzsche so you don't end up in a holocaust (yea Nazis, I'm looking at you).

I agree with him on post-modernism. I'd go as far as to say that for several decades, collective creativity has watered down and in some fields had completely disappeared.

His dissection of bible and forgotten ancient knowledge is actually very atheistic. What is closer to truth is that his 'interpretation' of the bible is more an intellectual analysis of where did those ideas come from, what effect they have, and what are they trying to achieve. Probably in his private life he thinks that bible is one of the instruments to create government, or rather a complement to it (I don't know about that really, I just like to think that way:)

As a global society we are facing a very big problem of how to really understand world and our own role in it. Unfortunately, our one-sided advances in technology and the neglect for personal and collective development had left us quite incapable of coping with our own potential up to the point where we have become a serious threat to ourselves, not just in a nuclear war kind of scenario, but most importantly, in a mental health way. Basically we are still living as cave men, overly-curiously wielding a pandora's box. Maybe his advice on how to be successful in today's world are a bit too curative and not as preventive, but what really can you do about it? People are very tied-up in their own worlds. They may had been since and may be forever, idk.

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He's a douchenozzle. And we're sorry aboot him eh.

 

http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/is-jordan-peterson-the-stupid-mans-smart-person/

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-jordan-peterson-paradox-high-intellect-or-just-another-angry-white-guy/article37806524/

 

He is however, smart enough to make around 50K a month on his patreon through feeding the fertile young minds of /pol/ and r/thedon (or whatever the fuck that subreddit is called) the jizz-soaked fantasies they want to hear of "Valhalla under siege" and "fearing the other 101" ad nauseum.

i like the part where she makes fun of his voice lol

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Anyone calling Peterson alt-right is not only ignorant of history & politics, but also completely ignorant of his work and political position.  It's a good way to tell who's actually well informed and who just swallows and regurgitates socialist horseshit with no research of their own.

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He's a psychologist and has nothing to do with the alt-right, he simply says what he thinks.  I'm not going to sit and say I think he's great, because some of his ideas are bullshit and he tends to start sounding a bit crazy when he talks about his mythological crap, but he's great at succinctly refuting fallacious feminist ideological talking points.  It's easy to group individuals in with groups you dislike but it doesn't make your claims any more legitimate

 

This, and echoing what others said, he seems interesting and thought-provoking and it'd be unfair to lump him into any one group.

 

He kind of reminds me of Hitchens, who I still greatly respect in some aspects but disregard in others. As I grow older I tend to shy away from idolizing folks to the point of taking everything they say or express to heart, the few who I do really think are right or sound 99% tend to be neutral and fairly anti-controversial or just flat out absurd and humorous.

 

For example I could say I feel this way about Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S Thompson, Norm McDonald, Fenriz of Darkthrone, Louis CK. It's more about appreciating their perspective or persona at that point. They are also not attention seeking so what they do say is rarely superficial, reactive, and/or incendiary. It's much harder to do that with academics, statesmen, politicians, etc. because of the power and influence they wield. 

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I remember watching some of his older lectures on comparative mythology and psychology, especially Jungian stuff, and quite liking them, but this was before the whole 'let's throw a wobbly about trans pronouns'/"cultural marxism" thing and adoption by the alt-right, which has subsequently put me off him; I think he's enjoying the present limelight a bit too much, perhaps.

 

hes a moron. being smart on the internet is like the biggest fucking red flag 

 

I don't quite agree with the moron part but I do think getting involved in full-on internet debates about complex IRL issues can be counter-productive and that this is something Peterson's very much fallen prey to. I remember there used to an old 4chan meme that said "arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics: even if you win, you're still retarded", and whilst that's obviously an extraordinarily cruel way of wording it, I do basically agree with the sentiment; arguing online is an extraordinary waste of time, imo.

 

I feel like the polarized-left/polarized-right debates that seem to be very big on US campuses at the moment are kind of like online debates that have spilled out into the 'real world', but in some ways still have that endless, petty, circular logic that characterises online debates, and I think this has become Peterson's main thing at the moment. Personally I wouldn't be thrilled if I found myself gathering a substantial coterie of alt-right fuckeroos as followers, and I'd start to wonder what, exactly, about my work, was attracting such people. Even if Peterson himself isn't exactly 'alt-right' (idk what his political persuasions are) I do feel like you have to take some responsibility for how people are interpreting the things you say, and this is something he's not necessarily done.

 

Agree that the C4 interview demonstrated very poor journalism/interviewing skills.

 

Edit: just realised I spent like 10 minutes writing a post about how online debates are retarded in order to post it in an online debate :catrage:

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He is not a holocaust denier. That's ludicrous for anyone who has spent any length of time listening to him. It may be a leap that gulags are up next after Canadian language legislation but he's not wrong about the dangers of thought policing either. If anything, it's valuable that he's keeping some of the lesser known horrors like the Holodomor front and center in an age where hammers and sickles are dank memes.

 

It's hard to deny that tribalism is ramping up in many parts of the world--particularly 'murica. This isn't new either. Political scientists have been talking about this since the early 90s because we're not falling along nationalist lines as much anymore a la Axis/Allies, Iron Curtain vs Coalition of the Willing kind of shit. Now, it's your political party, the particular flavor of oppression you have experienced, your race, your *insert anything here* that are the new faultlines and it's not very stable. His antidote to this is individualism and personal responsibility although it's admittedly amorphous when you try to drill that down into the concrete. It's one of the reasons he gets out of his depth a little because a brilliant clinician can really do some magic with one person but you can't extrapolate that to society at large.

 

He is also seizing on a moment and profiting but is that wrong? There is a malaise among young men that you basically can't talk about--even on a male-dominated message board because it's like a rat trap that snaps shut with immediate jeers and criticisms of Red Pill/misogyny/etc. If you ignore his politics, his suggestions for a better life are largely empirical, clinically valid and not controversial. How can you shit on goal setting and cleaning your room? I dunno. I get pretty shocked these days by how polar and divisive just about everyone seems to be on almost anything you can think of. It's unsettling.

 

This.  A lot of topics aren't allowed to be talked about, and he talks about them.  To claim that they are allowed to be talked about is naive, since even mentioning them on any remotely liberal section of the internet gets you immediately shat on, with your arguments completely ignored offhand.  

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Well one thing I can confirm is that after watching a couple of his lectures on youtube that site is now constantly suggesting alt-right videos about the evils of PC culture and feminism. Is this how some people go down that particular rabbit hole?

 

Some of the stuff he says certainly seems sensible but yeah he does make some massive oversimplifications of the positions he's arguing against. Plus my arsehole spider-sense starts tingling these days whenever anyone starts railing against 'social justice warriors'. I'd be interested to see him go against someone who could pick apart his arguments with a bit more rigour - that C4 interview was a total disaster.

 

As for holocaust denial / 'fantasising about assaulting a child' that does indeed sound like something that needs a bit more proof, what's he actually said to support this?

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The Holocaust denier claim is absurd, any lecture I've listened by him always brings up Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Holocaust anecdotes to the point where it's almost like his entire worldview consists of quotes of other people, talking about how bad the Holocaust was and how bad that period of history was. 

 

Also the internet is a great way to spread information.  How is the internet inherently any less intelligent than for instance TV broadcasting stations or other media for publicly available debates?  For instance, watch this video:

 

 

It's extremely annoying to watch because the interviewer is clearly intellectually outclassed and doesn't even understand what's going on, reverting to irrelevant talking points constantly.  Is this any better than the internet?  No, there are idiots everywhere.  And arguing with idiots is a great way to expose them to passive audiences, regardless of where they are


how can you guys defend him after this

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAnZRui6YNM

 

kek

definitely not edited

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lol, just a serious professer,   well that and a  clinical psychologist.   

 

 

yeah.. that too.. i guess what i was trying to say is he's a serious academic. 

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TIL misogynist = stupid.

 

Sorry eh, he’s a very smart douche-nozzle. Who totally didn’t try and start a website to stifle academic freedom.

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TIL misogynist = stupid.

 

Sorry eh, he’s a very smart douche-nozzle. Who totally didn’t try and start a website to stifle academic freedom.

freedom to make other people do what you want

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I don't have anything to say or share re: Jordan Peterson but WRT Sam Harris, this guy said it better than I could:

 

 

 

If Harris/Peterson are the poles you find yourself stuck between then you should probably step back and seriously reevaluate your worldview.

 

 

 

re: IQ

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-fallacy-study-8425911.html

 

And, you know, the patently obvious fact that a test designed to measure a very narrow set of learned skills that at best will demonstrate an individuals aptitude at specific set of cognitive skills that are highly valued in a specific culture doesn't really say anything of great value.

 

EDIT re: Peterson being a "serious academic"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism_and_educational_inflation

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/my-old-case-against-credentialism-article/384190/

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I don't have anything to say or share re: Jordan Peterson but WRT Sam Harris, this guy said it better than I could:

 

 

 

If Harris/Peterson are the poles you find yourself stuck between then you should probably step back and seriously reevaluate your worldview.

 

 

 

re: IQ

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-fallacy-study-8425911.html

 

And, you know, the patently obvious fact that a test designed to measure a very narrow set of learned skills that at best will demonstrate an individuals aptitude at specific set of cognitive skills that are highly valued in a specific culture doesn't really say anything of great value.

 

EDIT re: Peterson being a "serious academic"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism_and_educational_inflation

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/my-old-case-against-credentialism-article/384190/

 

 

that's great. i do think that being a "serious academic" is double edged sword. it can easily be a criticism and often totally is. i do tend to view a lot of the peterson blurbs i've listened to to be framed and housed in academia with little to no relevance on my daily life. we all interpret the world around us for better or worse.

 

"credentialism" is really interesting topic. i read "Antifragile" and liked it a lot. it's full of lot's of interesting ideas and examples of those ideas. the case for apprenticeships vs academia is very very strong for many many fields. 

 

i don't know.. i don't have anything to say really. just would rather throw rotten fruit at stuff if i could. 

 

edit: if i met jordan peterson or sam harris or whoever.. i'd just try to sell him a synth.

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