Peterson, Harris, etc....

[horsechoker]

Why does it matter? I'm not arsed enough to do it but doesn't mean I can't appreciate the effort. The same applies to Trump tweets. Are the people who trawls his Twitter feeds to expose his stupidity and hypocrisy no lifers?

To play devil's advocate Trump's tweets are from a man who is the President and further reaching ramifications. Although some tweets speak for themselves, others require a tad more explanation as to why it is or wrong or you disagree with it. People elsewhere add commentary or argue with what Trump and Peterson say, but in this thread a lot of what I have seen is just tweets dumped randomly, even on a Peterson and co. enjoying a meal out which somehow enrages people.

This for example doesn't require an explanation as his assertion that anything written to serve a political purpose is only propaganda is wrong. There are is a lot of politically charged music that I would consider art.

 

[DOTA]

even on a Peterson and co. enjoying a meal out which somehow enrages people.

It does?

 

[Silva]

This for example doesn't require an explanation as his assertion that anything written to serve a political purpose is only propaganda is wrong. There are is a lot of politically charged music that I would consider art.

I've got some bad news for you there bucko

One of the things that struck me as near miraculous about music, especially in a rather nihilistic and atheistic society, is that it really does fill the void which was left by the death of God - and its because you cannot rationally critique music. It speaks to you, it speaks of meaning, and no matter what you say about it, no matter how cynical you are, you cannot put a crowbar underneath that and toss it aside.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

You would if their tweets were this laughable

What’s “laughable” about this tweet? Seems to be a link to an academic journal. The link doesn’t work but I’m guessing it was research on IQ and semen quality. What aspect tickled your funny bone? Did you even notice the link doesn’t work?

 

[Silva]

What’s “laughable” about this tweet? Seems to be a link to an academic journal. The link doesn’t work but I’m guessing it was research on IQ and semen quality. What aspect tickled your funny bone?

It's inherently funny to see such a stupid person talk about the relation of intelligence and semen. It would be like Donald Trump talking about the link between a healthy diet or exercise and semen quality.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

It's inherently funny to see such a stupid person talk about the relation of intelligence and semen. It would be like Donald Trump talking about the link between a healthy diet or exercise and semen quality.

Does Donald Trump have any academic qualifications or peer-reviewed publications in the field of clinical psychology? If we’re throwing around “stupid” then your analogy ticks all the boxes.

 

[Raoul]

Trump has also done numerous campaign speeches, press conferences and public address. They are just as stupid as his tweets.

He doesn't do press conferences very often which is why people rely on his tweets to glean policy. If he did public Q&A lectures, long podcasts etc then there may be the beginnings of a legitimate comparison.

 

[Raoul]

I think the podcast as a medium is a bit of a game-changer. The ability for people to talk through their ideas at such length (without being forced to debate them in front of an audience) is a brand new phenomenon. That's how a not particularly intelligent, hacky stoner comedian like Joe Rogan ends up being associated with this whole thing. He's been at the forefront of the whole podcast scene from day one.

If you actually take the time to listen to podcasts involving most of this "intellectual dark web" people then you soon realise they're all quite different, with fairly diverse ideas on lots of different topics. I mean, Sam Harris is a strident atheist, while Peterson is strongly religious. When two men are so completely in disagreement over such a fundamental world view then it's really kind of stupid to decide they're basically interchangeable.

Youtube and podcasts in general yes. They allow ideas to get fully fleshed out for more than forums, twitter and the like.

 

[hobbers]

Peterson will no doubt be absolutely delighted that his twitter feed has so many of the righteous brand of intellectuals spitting fury and frothing at the mouth.

 

[McUnited]

It's inherently funny to see such a stupid person talk about the relation of intelligence and semen. It would be like Donald Trump talking about the link between a healthy diet or exercise and semen quality.

To any interested observer, he is quite obviously not a stupid person. To say that he is says more about you than you seem to realise.

 

[Silva]

To any interested observer, he is quite obviously not a stupid person. To say that he is says more about you than you seem to realise.

The man believes in witches and dragons. He has the intellectual capacity of a particularly dumb 7 year old who watches the cartoon network all day.

 

[Eboue]

I wonder how much time silva and eboue spend trawling through the tweets of - in their opinion - a very very stupid man?

The thing is it takes a matter of seconds to find Peterson being either misogynist, transphobic, scientifically illiterate, historically revisionist or going on about dragons and witches being real, the difficulty is deciding which to highlight.

If the premise that hes above average intelligence or he has interesting points to make can be so easily disproven by the things he actually says and does then what does that say? You and raoul and chutney act like we are posting about how he didnt tip the waitress in 1987. This guy is supposed to be public intellectual and yet a huge amount of the things he says in public are either extremely stupid or not thought about for more than 30 seconds. The video where he literally hadn't considered the existence of the civil rights movement is a good example. The emperor has no clothes.

 

[Raoul]

If the premise that hes above average intelligence or he has interesting points to make can be so easily disproven by the things he actually says and does then what does that say? You and raoul and chutney act like we are posting about how he didnt tip the waitress in 1987. This guy is supposed to be public intellectual and yet a huge amount of the things he says in public are either extremely stupid or not thought about for more than 30 seconds. The video where he literally hadn't considered the existence of the civil rights movement is a good example. The emperor has no clothes.

It's probably due to the suspicion that the people who are cherrypicking his quotes out of context are spending an inordinate amount of time attempting to discredit him to people who are already not fans of his, but are still open to listening to the entirely of his schtick for entertainment purposes or to perhaps help add a bit of contrast to their own existing ideas about some of the topics he discusses.

 

[Eboue]

It's probably due to the suspicion that the people who are cherrypicking his quotes out of context are spending an inordinate amount of time attempting to discredit him to people who are already not fans of his, but are still open to listening to the entirely of his schtick for entertainment purposes or to perhaps help add a bit of contrast to their own existing ideas about some of the topics he discusses.

I literally found all of these (and more, there's a limit on tweets in one post) in 15 minutes when I originally posted them. If we are supposed to view someone as a public intellectual, it would help if he didn't constantly give us evidence to the contrary.

 

[Cheesy]

It's probably due to the suspicion that the people who are cherrypicking his quotes out of context are spending an inordinate amount of time attempting to discredit him to people who are already not fans of his, but are still open to listening to the entirely of his schtick for entertainment purposes or to perhaps help add a bit of contrast to their own existing ideas about some of the topics he discusses.

Posting a tweet isn't cherrypicking his views out of context. It's a direct statement made by him that makes his views clear, especially when a lot of those tweets begin to relate to each other.

I get that it can be annoying when some posters automatically dismiss certain ideas or people out-of-hand, but at the same time I think it's sometimes quite good to cut the shite and get to the point. Silva and Eboue, whatever you think of their approach, are ultimately highlighting that Peterson says a lot of stupid stuff for a supposedly very intelligent academic.

 

[Silva]

Instead of telling us that we're decontextualising all of this why not add the context? We've given dozens of examples of Peterson being dumb as a rock, are there dozens of examples of his intellectual prowess shining through?

 

[Raoul]

Instead of telling us that we're decontextualising all of this why not add the context? We've given dozens of examples of Peterson being dumb as a rock, are there dozens of examples of his intellectual prowess shining through?

Why don't you instead take one of his recent public talks on youtube and assess the things you agree or disagree with and we can have a debate about it. That would take the cherrypicking and taking out of context issues off the table.

 

[Silva]

Why don't you instead take one of his recent public talks on youtube and assess the things you agree or disagree with and we can have a debate about it. That would take the cherrypicking and taking out of context issues off the table.

I have, it's like Kermit was possessed by a a misogynistic character in a tolkien book. What would be the point in fleshing out an argument when simply quoting him verbatim does a better job of exposing that he's a charlatan.

 

[McUnited]

I literally found all of these (and more, there's a limit on tweets in one post) in 15 minutes when I originally posted them. If we are supposed to view someone as a public intellectual, it would help if he didn't constantly give us evidence to the contrary.

Not too sure what evidence you think you've provided...

 

[Raoul]

I have, it's like Kermit was possessed by a a misogynistic character in a tolkien book. What would be the point in fleshing out an argument when simply quoting him verbatim does a better job of exposing that he's a charlatan.

Its generally problematic to take someone like Peterson out of context because he tends to often clumsily meander in and out of points by going into bizarre rabbit holes that generally don't communicate well when a sentence here or there are plucked out and pasted into a tweet.

 

[Silva]

Not too sure what evidence you think you've provided...

that he is a charlatan who is mostly defended by other charlatans who believe fairy tales, i.e

So, in your opinion, as long as the government recognised a same-sex union on the same terms as a marriage, that would be fine?
If so, we are in the same boat!
I just don't think it should be called marriage. It could be called something else - like parriage.

I'm curious to know whether you would strip marriage of all its religious connotations and how liberal you are. Would you, for example, be happy for people to be married wherever they wanted to, by whomever they wanted (their uncle/aunt), with no association to religious authority or dogma?

 

[DOTA]

Peterson will no doubt be absolutely delighted that his twitter feed has so many of the righteous brand of intellectuals spitting fury and frothing at the mouth.

I'm not sure he's the sort who laughs off criticism to be honest. He seems to get pretty angry about it usually.

 

[Silva]

Its generally problematic to take someone like Peterson out of context because he tends to often clumsily meander in and out of points by going into bizarre rabbit holes that generally don't communicate well when a sentence here or there are plucked out and pasted into a tweet.

This is the guy who wrote a book where one of his central rules of living a good life was to speak clearly, not only that, the things we have posted were not always part of a longer meander - they were simple statement that mean exactly what they say on face value.

He is a charlatan that promotes regressive ideas about women and trans people. He peddles fairy tales and pseudoscience. There's nothing there to take seriously.

 

[Eboue]

I'm not sure he's the sort who laughs off criticism to be honest. He seems to get pretty angry about it usually.

 

[McUnited]

that he is a charlatan who is mostly defended by other charlatans who believe fairy tales, i.e

You sound like an angry person. Why are you so angry?

 

[InfiniteBoredom]

How very Christian of him.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Its generally problematic to take someone like Peterson out of context because he tends to often clumsily meander in and out of points by going into bizarre rabbit holes that generally don't communicate well when a sentence here or there are plucked out and pasted into a tweet.

Tbf that’s been how he’s come across to me even when he’s given all the time and space he needs to get his point across. Did you see the video of his Oxford Union monologue earlier on in the thread? It’s fecking tortuous to listen to. Or have a listen to Sam Harris discussing the nature of truth with him on his podcast. If you dare.

 

[Silva]

And he's aggressive AF. There's those tweets and the fantasy of killing a child in a playground as he wrote in his book.

 

[Carolina Red]

You sound like an angry person. Why are you so angry?

 

[do.ob]

I literally found all of these (and more, there's a limit on tweets in one post) in 15 minutes when I originally posted them. If we are supposed to view someone as a public intellectual, it would help if he didn't constantly give us evidence to the contrary.

Could you please elaborate why you think these particular tweets are so obviously stupid?
I think some of them raise interesting question (and literally nothing more).

I'm neither here nor there regarding Peterson, because I simply haven't looked at enough of his stuff to formulate a judgement.

 

[Silva]

flashback to the time Peterson pretended to be an expert in a courtroom

I will deal next with Dr. Peterson’s report entitled “Multiple rater response to play assessment description From Kawartha Family Court Assessment Service Report”. It is dated May 4, 2009. This is perhaps the most interesting of all of the reports that counsel for the respondent wishes the court to consider. It comes as close to “junk science” as anything that I have ever been asked to consider.

The apparent but unfounded arrogance of Dr. Peterson found throughout this report [and for that matter in some of the other reports] is troubling and give rise to the question of whether his reports are not biased in more than one fashion. That there can be more than one type of bias when it comes to experts is explored by Professor David Paciocco in his article “Taking a ‘Goudge’ out of Bluster and Blarney: an ‘Evidence-Based Approach’ to Expert Testimony”.[9] On page 18 of his paper, Professor Paciocco lists and defines many possible types of bias, including: lack of independence bias; adversarial bias; selection bias; team bias; professional interest bias; association bias; and noble cause distortion bias. I venture the opinion that Dr. Peterson suffers from at least two, if not three, of those.

https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2009/2009canlii80104/2009canlii80104.html

88] The situation here is even more remote. It is difficult to see how Dr. Peterson’s technique of assessing the personality of a person for his private consulting business satisfies the Daubert factors to make it admissible for a forensic purpose. Dr. Peterson provided no evidence that his technique of personality assessment has been properly tested for the purpose it is being used for here, detecting when an agreeable person may falsely confess to the police. All Dr. Peterson could say is he hired university students to try and fake the personality assessment and they couldn’t do it. That is not scientific validation. There has been no peer review of the technique of the Unfakeable Big Five. Dr. Peterson provided no rate of error or accepted deviations. In fact, he claimed, without any proof, that his assessment tool cannot be deceived while other personality assessment techniques can be. Finally, there is no evidence that the Unfakeable Big Five is generally accepted as a forensic tool. It was designed and is used for Dr. Peterson’s private consulting clients to hire employees.

[90] While not necessary to decide this appeal, I would close discussion of the judge’s ruling on Dr. Peterson’s proposed expert evidence by expressing concern about the decision to attempt to proffer Dr. Peterson as an expert witness on areas that he was clearly not qualified as he had no background whatsoever regarding police interrogations. This decision unnecessarily complicated and delayed this trial and is proof positive of the concern expressed in D.D. (at para. 56) of the detrimental impact on the justice system of attempting to use dubious expert opinion.

https://www.canlii.org/en/mb/mbca/doc/2014/2014mbca70/2014mbca70.html

 

[SteveJ]

You sound like an angry person. Why are you so angry?

Guess: because the matriarchy forbids him the right to keep female slaves?

 

[Raoul]

Tbf that’s been how he’s come across to me even when he’s given all the time and space he needs to get his point across. Did you see the video of his Oxford Union monologue earlier on in the thread? It’s fecking tortuous to listen to. Or have a listen to Sam Harris discussing the nature of truth with him on his podcast. If you dare.

Haven't listened to the entire Oxford Union thing yet. As for Harris, I generally gravitate more to his atheism and free will material. He tends to himself go into philosophical tangents that take forever to unpack at which point I'm either bored or unimpressed (or both).

 

[JohnLocke]

The tweets about women discriminating their choice of partner are regarding equity. In Brave New World turning someone down based on their preferences (sexist/lookist/ableist/ageist/racist) is seen as bad manners. He doesn't believe that women should have to sleep with whatever person wants to sleep with them.

He tweeted an interesting short story written by Kurt Vonnegut on equity that would tie in with this notion:

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

He doesn't believe that there are literal dragons (flying scaly monsters that breathe fire) living on the earth either.

 

[Eboue]

Could you please elaborate why you think these particular tweets are so obviously stupid?
I think some of them raise interesting question (and literally nothing more).

I'm neither here nor there regarding Peterson, because I simply haven't looked at enough of his stuff to formulate a judgement.

choosing your sexual partner is discrimination?
feminists dont criticize islam () and feminists long for male domination ( )
islam already rules the world?
he thinks pepe is some sort of deep message?

and so on. i mean, they are all blatantly absurd. we can discuss a couple in particular if youd like

 

[Cheesy]

Tbf that’s been how he’s come across to me even when he’s given all the time and space he needs to get his point across. Did you see the video of his Oxford Union monologue earlier on in the thread? It’s fecking tortuous to listen to. Or have a listen to Sam Harris discussing the nature of truth with him on his podcast. If you dare.

Yeah, tried listening to a bit of him on YouTube etc once or twice and he tends to just endlessly ramble without actually getting to the fecking point. Twitter forces him to be more concise, and to me posting stuff he's said directly isn't taking his views out of context at all.

 

[SteveJ]

It's surely a fault to take philosophical/psychological/social positions based on works of fiction (Brave New World, for example); see Freud, Hamlet and the Oedipus Complex for details.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Haven't listened to the entire Oxford Union thing yet. As for Harris, I generally gravitate more to his atheism and free will material. He tends to himself go into philosophical tangents that take forever to unpack at which point I'm either bored or unimpressed (or both).

In a one on one with Peterson, Harris comes across as super concise and to the point by comparison.

 

[InfiniteBoredom]

It's surely a fault to take philosophical/psychological/social positions based on works of fiction (Brave New World, for example); see Freud, Hamlet and the Oedipus Complex for details.

I see what you really did there.

 

[SteveJ]

I see what you really did there.