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Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

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41–50 of 118 posts

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#41

Not a single talk, but a series: Jordan Peterson’s Psychological Significance of the Bible Stories. As an atheist I found his explanations extremely interesting. Peterson is a brilliant scholar and draws connections between psychology and brain structures, human evolution, and religion. I don’t believe in any trascendental being, but listening to these lectures made me understand better the psychological and moral va…

Agreed. After going through these lectures I was able to read the Old Testament for the first time.

Previous attempts stalled because I couldn't really make sense of it, and because it didn't seem very interesting.

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#42

Rich Hickey, Effective Programs - an examination of the essence of what we do as programmers (for many of us, wirting "situated programs"), and a spirited defense of dynamically typed languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V1FtfBDsLU

Seconded...good talk!

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? I'm really skeptical about IQ in general, but anyone popular with the far right really makes me suspicious. I'll take a look at the link you provided...But man, there are an awful lot of 1488 types that support this guy. It really makes me question where he is coming from.

I usually employ the same rule of thumb (although I don't know who "1488 types" are - my rule of thumb is that if a gamergater is passionately defending an opinion I default to the opposite until I learn more). But I've made an exception for Peterson. He's not as super left wing as much university staff, sure, but to call him extreme right is very far fetched. My impression, if this means anything to you, is that his…

I think he deliberately tries to appeal to the kind of disillusioned young white men who mostly make up the "alt right", but he tries to steer them away from the identity politics of "white nationalism" and towards personal responsibility and self-improvement.

Check out this video for the best example: https://youtu.be/XbOeO_frzvg

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#44

Not a single talk, but a series: Jordan Peterson’s Psychological Significance of the Bible Stories. As an atheist I found his explanations extremely interesting. Peterson is a brilliant scholar and draws connections between psychology and brain structures, human evolution, and religion. I don’t believe in any trascendental being, but listening to these lectures made me understand better the psychological and moral va…

Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? I'm really skeptical about IQ in general, but anyone popular with the far right really makes me suspicious. I'll take a look at the link you provided...But man, there are an awful lot of 1488 types that support this guy. It really makes me question where he is coming from.

For anyone who cares, here's a 90 min video interview with Peterson and a prominent intelligence researcher: https://youtu.be/PY4sShDt9to

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? I'm really skeptical about IQ in general, but anyone popular with the far right really makes me suspicious. I'll take a look at the link you provided...But man, there are an awful lot of 1488 types that support this guy. It really makes me question where he is coming from.

> 1488 types whats that?

It's a code nazis use: 14 = the 14 words "we must ensure the existence of our people and a future for white children" 88 = H is the 8th letter, HH = Heil Hitler

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? I'm really skeptical about IQ in general, but anyone popular with the far right really makes me suspicious. I'll take a look at the link you provided...But man, there are an awful lot of 1488 types that support this guy. It really makes me question where he is coming from.

> 1488 types whats that?

Chalk this up to 'things I wish I didn't know', but it's a neo-nazi slogan/concept of 'fourteen words' (something about 'saving the future for white children', yada yada) and 'heil hitler' - 'H' being the 8th letter of the alphabet. '1488-types' are a reference to the type of folks who buy into that horsepuckey.

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#49

Jessica Kerr's "Shaving the Golden Yak" [1] or "If Coco Chanel Reviewed Elm" [2] by Tereza Sokol. [1]: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/easier-software-developm... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wiw3YcwGwrU

I'm a big fan of the Chanel talk; it's a neat perspective with a well thought out presentation.

Re: Ask HN: What’s your favorite talk from 2017?

#50

Not a single talk, but a series: Jordan Peterson’s Psychological Significance of the Bible Stories. As an atheist I found his explanations extremely interesting. Peterson is a brilliant scholar and draws connections between psychology and brain structures, human evolution, and religion. I don’t believe in any trascendental being, but listening to these lectures made me understand better the psychological and moral va…

Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories? I'm really skeptical about IQ in general, but anyone popular with the far right really makes me suspicious. I'll take a look at the link you provided...But man, there are an awful lot of 1488 types that support this guy. It really makes me question where he is coming from.

[First off: JBP supporters who are downvoting the parent, come on, you know better. That's not how you do things.]

> Isn't Jordan Peterson also famous for being a proponent of racial IQ theories?

If he is, it's remarkable that I've been able to miss that over listening to his course lectures since 2015 on top of the more recent bible/other lectures.

My personal location on the political spectrum right now is pretty partisan Democrat, largely out of the opinion that the Republican Party and most of the conservatism in the US is a dumpster fire, and in particular that the GOP is almost completely incapable of doing policy in the public interest. I say this to make it entirely clear that I'm hardly "far right." :)

And I still think taking in Peterson's stuff has been probably the single best thing that's happened to me for sharpening my thinking over the last few years.

I also think there are some reasonable arguments that he's wrong about a number of things, and I think you should be suspicious about how some of his ideas are functioning in certain political conversations. I see lower-resolution versions of his thinking being pressed into service of conventional conservative partisan narratives. But I strongly suspect that the solution, if there is one, is going to be engaging with the political ideas and trying to criticize them as effectively (and intellectually) as he advocates for them. Ad hominem attacks aimed at his status are only going to feed the beast.

And to the extent that you think progressivism or liberalism or centrist technocratism or whatever are based in reason and argument (and I do), it would be a gift if Peterson's thinking became more prominent, even where it might be wrong. You can engage reason and argument with reason and argument. It's pretty hard for me to tell how to engage Trumpism.

And finally -- Peterson is super popular in large part because he's primarily working in the realm of applied personal philosophy. He's done a lot of compelling work to distill the interpretation of religious narratives, philosophical thinking, and psychology into some concrete guidance that's digestible for those of us culturally centered in western modernity. I think it'd be a rare person who can't find some of what he has to say interesting and useful.

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