Jordan Peterson in Charleston 2 June

[okclem]

100%. Was not directing shade to any specific person. I just find it mildly amusing that humans in our efforts to compare, connect, or classify things, it can lead to some interesting juxtapositions. There is a thin line between genius and madness, that may very well be painted in blood.

Yeah I don't disagree with that at all, especially the last part.

 

[okclem]

No need to apologize. This kind of discussion is one of the reasons I started this thread. Again, I my journey with JP was not always lock step. He was a guy I thought had an interesting way of looking at things. I try not to hold people's personal trials and tribulations against them. It does provide color and perspective to his overall arguments. Interestingly, I wonder if his own nature has changed because of his circumstance, or his true self is being revealed due to circumstance.

Lastly, the thing that really caught my attention was when Nassim Nicholas Taleb called him a fraud. Granted Mr. Taleb thinks all psychiatrists and economists are frauds.

I think both present their opinions on very nebulous, dynamic disciplines as rock solid fact far too often. The truth is there is no hard science being done in either field.

 

[dbjork6317]

I thought that was Joe Rogan. Guess it could be both.

I feel like Rogan/Peterson/Musk/Maher and some others all kind of fall in the same category as kind of this nebulous political ideology that has no real definable ethos. But they all enjoy just being edge lords/trolls and clutching their pearls at certain liberal social movements that they consider “woke” which, in and of itself, has no real definition.

 

[okclem]

I've been trying to figure out how to concisely explain my issues with JP, so let me give it a try:
1. He wants to be seen as a centrist thinker, first and foremost, somebody who is driven by science and facts. But it's just not true. The structure of his arguments generally goes like this: talk about a scientific or mathematical "law of nature", extrapolate that concept to relate to whatever he's talking about (pick any of his favorite topics), makes the topic seem incredibly complex when it generally isn't, reach a conclusion in a way that suggests that this thing (gender pay gap, wealth inequality, climate change, etc) is inevitable and there's nothing we can do about it. The problem is that step one of his argument, the foundation, is generally flawed in some way...sometimes made up, sometimes already debunked, or it's a concept that he doesn't seem to actually understand. He has said on podcasts and in interviews that he's a psychiatrist and that he doesn't do math and that their are topics that he doesn't really understand. Which is funny that he rails about the problems with climate models (and gets it wrong), talks endlessly about the Pareto Principle (and gets it wrong), his whole lobster thing with the serotonin (it's been debunked), and loves to cite and quote articles/books from questionable sources from problematic authors. It all sounds smart to people sitting in a crowd or reading a book, but his arguments are generally based on bad science from the start. His "laws of nature" are never that, but they sound good!
2. He gives a really good lecture, he's great in front of a crowd, and he likes to think of himself as a teacher. But given the above issues, he's not. I've heard him described as more of a preacher than a teacher, and that feels right to me. It's not a problem to be a preacher, but he's always saying that he's not that.
3. Again, he wants to be seen as a centrist and he's said many times that he doesn't consider himself to be "right wing", but that's kinda silly right on its face. Here is the Wikipedia definition of right-wing politics: "Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, religion, biology or tradition." That's basically his whole ideology in a nutshell, for any of you who aren't familiar with it. And also, by the way, that's fine if he's right-wing! Many many people share those beliefs! But what JP does is, with bad faith arguments and sketchy/incorrect "laws of nature", acts like he's coming to his belief system naturally in some inevitable way. And it's just coincidence that he's always coming to conclusions that line up with a right-wing belief system. It's disingenuous.
4. I think #3 above might be why many people say "he used to be great but now he's off the deep end" because I think he might have originally believed his own lies that he reached his right-wing belief system naturally based on thought and "math" and "science", instead of simply HAVING a belief system and then using his intellect to back into justification for it (i.e. what basically every one does, including me!). But at this point he has become a useful tool for the right-wing crowd and has grown to become almost a caricature of his earlier self, and is now clearly shilling for a paycheck. He gets hired at The Daily Wire, founded by a guy who makes his money fracking, and all of a sudden he thinks fracking is great? Again, it's disingenuous.
5. Lastly, many of the conclusions he ends up reaching are dangerous and start straying into fascist (or worse) belief systems...and his defense, whenever people call him out on it, is that he never suggests anything like that. But what he does is he drives the car toward the cliff, his audience in the back seat, and then at the last minute takes his hands off the wheel so that he can say "I didn't drive us over the cliff". AGAIN, disingenuous.
Let me close by giving an example of what I'm talking about. One of my favorite examples of the way he structures an argument is also maybe the most horrifying. JP likes to say that years ago the army had done tons of IQ studies and had put a policy in place that they would not take recruits with an IQ less than 83. He said that the army came to the conclusion, again based on rigorous studies, that there was nothing anyone with an IQ less than 83 could do in the army that wouldn't make things worse. He then shocks the crowd by saying that 1 in 10 people in the US have an IQ of less than 83. He then says that, if the US economy is reasonably as complex as the US army, that means that 1 in 10 people living in the US can't do anything of value. Then he says something like "this is a huge problem and it's very complex and nobody knows what to do about it...it's just a natural hierarchy and nobody knows what to do". When pressed for a solution, he throws up his hands. BUT HERE IS THE PROBLEM WITH THE ARGUMENT: That whole army 83 IQ policy thing he based this argument on is made up. There was never a policy, the army never came to the conclusion that the couldn't take people based on IQ, and there is no evidence that somebody with an IQ of 83 or lower "can't contribute meaningfully" to the army or the economy. His whole argument, which leads his audience to an unspoken (always unspoken) conclusion that the bottom 10% of our population is worthless, is based on something he just made up or maybe heard somewhere and didn't fact check or something. At best, his audience learns that they should loath the bottom 10% of the US population...at worst, you can see where the eugenics ideas start to creep in.
Sorry, this went way long but wanted to get those thoughts on paper!

YEAH!!

Seriously excellent post, man. Well done.

 

[BigPapaWhit]

I feel like Rogan/Peterson/Musk/Maher and some others all kind of fall in the same category as kind of this nebulous political ideology that has no real definable ethos. But they all enjoy just being edge lords/trolls and clutching their pearls at certain liberal social movements that they consider “woke” which, in and of itself, has no real definition.

Ah Maher. Bill was one I found insightful and witty back in the day. Now, he just comes across to me as a stubborn old guy. He is an old man yelling at the clouds, which can be amusing on occasion. Then again, maybe Maher has not changed. Maybe it was me all along. Course, I also thought Lewis Black was hilarious. Lewis may still be hilarious. I just haven't seen him in a while.

 

[okclem]

I feel like Rogan/Peterson/Musk/Maher and some others all kind of fall in the same category as kind of this nebulous political ideology that has no real definable ethos. But they all enjoy just being edge lords/trolls and clutching their pearls at certain liberal social movements that they consider “woke” which, in and of itself, has no real definition.

You could really see it happening to Maher in real time (no pun intended) over the last couple years. I've never been a big fan of him personally, but I used to tune in a fair amount because the new rules segment could be really hilarious. But when I see him now all I see is angry old man blaming everything on the younger generations, unable to grasp that his opinion on cultural matters ceased to be relevant long ago.

 

[okclem]

Ah Maher. Bill was one I found insightful and witty back in the day. Now, he just comes across to me as a stubborn old guy. He is an old man yelling at the clouds, which can be amusing on occasion. Then again, maybe Maher has not changed. Maybe it was me all along. Course, I also thought Lewis Black was hilarious. Lewis may still be hilarious. I just haven't seen him in a while.

Ha, we typed pretty much the same post at the same time. Obviously, I agree.

 

[dbjork6317]

Ah Maher. Bill was one I found insightful and witty back in the day. Now, he just comes across to me as a stubborn old guy. He is an old man yelling at the clouds, which can be amusing on occasion. Then again, maybe Maher has not changed. Maybe it was me all along. Course, I also thought Lewis Black was hilarious. Lewis may still be hilarious. I just haven't seen him in a while.

“Old man yelling at clouds” is really a perfect way to describe Maher now. He had Bill Burr on his podcast a couple weeks ago and Burr just kept making fun of him and it was pretty great.

 

[BigPapaWhit]

“Old man yelling at clouds” is really a perfect way to describe Maher now. He had Bill Burr on his podcast a couple weeks ago and Burr just kept making fun of him and it was pretty great.

Love when Bill Burr calls people on their bullshit.

 

[WapPride]

You could really see it happening to Maher in real time (no pun intended) over the last couple years. I've never been a big fan of him personally, but I used to tune in a fair amount because the new rules segment could be really hilarious. But when I see him now all I see is angry old man blaming everything on the younger generations, unable to grasp that his opinion on cultural matters ceased to be relevant long ago.

Bill Burr on Bill Maher's podcast was an absolute treat.

edit: damn dbjork beat me

 

[Budgripe86]

I feel like Rogan/Peterson/Musk/Maher and some others all kind of fall in the same category as kind of this nebulous political ideology that has no real definable ethos. But they all enjoy just being edge lords/trolls and clutching their pearls at certain liberal social movements that they consider “woke” which, in and of itself, has no real definition.

I tend to think of Peterson/Musk in one basket and Rogan/Maher in another.

Peterson/Musk I think view themselves as sort of an anti-dote or savior for their perceived problems with the world. Peterson has adopted this mysterious persona with no real agenda that is ridiculous in my opinion. He actually just did an interview with Alex O’Connell in which Alex attempted to call him out on it, but was of course cut off and talked over by Peterson constantly.

In my opinion Rogan is simply calling out what he believes is ridiculousness. Left or right wing.

Maher has been calling out the right wing fringe for years. I’m not convinced Maher isn’t just realizing there’s an untapped market with money to be made by calling out some of left wing ideologies Rogan has been railing against for a few yrs.

 

[Budgripe86]

Bill Burr on Bill Maher's podcast was an absolute treat.

edit: damn dbjork beat me

I need to go listen to this. Burr is a national treasure

 

[okclem]

I tend to think of Peterson/Musk in one basket and Rogan/Maher in another.

Peterson/Musk I think view themselves as sort of an anti-dote or savior for their perceived problems with the world. Peterson has adopted this mysterious persona with no real agenda that is ridiculous in my opinion. He actually just did an interview with Alex O’Connell in which Alex attempted to call him out on it, but was of course cut off and talked over by Peterson constantly.

In my opinion Rogan is simply calling out what he believes is ridiculousness. Left or right wing.

Maher has been calling out the right wing fringe for years. I’m not convinced Maher isn’t just realizing there’s an untapped market with money to be made by calling out some of left wing ideologies Rogan has been railing against for a few yrs.

I could see that with Maher for sure.

 

[okclem]

“Old man yelling at clouds” is really a perfect way to describe Maher now. He had Bill Burr on his podcast a couple weeks ago and Burr just kept making fun of him and it was pretty great.

Have you seen Tim Heidecker's parodies of Club Random? Pure gold.

 

[dbjork6317]

I tend to think of Peterson/Musk in one basket and Rogan/Maher in another.

Peterson/Musk I think view themselves as sort of an anti-dote or savior for their perceived problems with the world. Peterson has adopted this mysterious persona with no real agenda that is ridiculous in my opinion. He actually just did an interview with Alex O’Connell in which Alex attempted to call him out on it, but was of course cut off and talked over by Peterson constantly.

In my opinion Rogan is simply calling out what he believes is ridiculousness. Left or right wing.

Maher has been calling out the right wing fringe for years. I’m not convinced Maher isn’t just realizing there’s an untapped market with money to be made by calling out some of left wing ideologies Rogan has been railing against for a few yrs.

The issue I take with Rogan now is he spouts conspiracy theories as factual. It used to be him bringing on guests with interesting ideas/thoughts/info and them just smoking weed and talking about various what ifs and could bes. Now he’s transitioned into full on misinformation as fact, especially around covid and vaccines. He also beats a lot of the republican talking point drums and seems to pretty fully buy into their narratives on Biden as a dementia ridden super criminal.

 

[Budgripe86]

The issue I take with Rogan now is he spouts conspiracy theories as factual. It used to be him bringing on guests with interesting ideas/thoughts/info and them just smoking weed and talking about various what ifs and could bes. Now he’s transitioned into full on misinformation as fact, especially around covid and vaccines. He also beats a lot of the republican talking point drums and seems to pretty fully buy into their narratives on Biden as a dementia ridden super criminal.

I tend to mainly listen to his podcasts with people in the hunting industry (also a passion of mine) and the “Save Our Parks” episodes, which are more of the get high and talk shit variety, so maybe I’ve missed some of the misinformation you’ve pointed out. Or it could be that I don’t view a particular comment as misinformation so it doesn’t register with me as such, I dunno.

From what I’ve heard his takes on social issues such as abortion, gay rights etc are very moderate/left. I have heard him call out Biden for being in cognitive decline but never a criminal in the way some on this board claim. When that’s been brought up it’s more of, “… I can’t believe trump/Biden are our options” type of comment.

You and I for sure disagree about many things surrounding Covid/vaccines so I do understand your distaste with Rogan’s view point.