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The death of a public intellectual

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Re: The death of a public intellectual

#291

Post by overrun11 »

Kye wrote: post #213
migro23 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once I heard Kendi's definition of racism (1) I could no longer take that guy seriously. He is a social justice warrior public intellectual of the post modernist variety leading me to think he is either innocently and unknowningly deluded or an intentional and nefarious grifter profitting from giving apparent credence to the hard left hardliners. A similar role that Jordan Peterson leverages to make a living arguing…

Not knowing anything about him, do you think I should weigh a 2 minute off the cuff answer in a Q&A segment over what I might find in the 320 page book ubermonkey suggested? The framing of the video is plainly and severely biased, so I have to be suspicious about editing and what context or expansion/correction I might find in a longer clip, plus how the framing itself affects my own interpretation. edit: Having read…

He would get the benefit of the doubt if he otherwise had insightful things to say. The problem is that his entire body of work is gaffes and nonsensical statements like this. His interview with Ezra Klein is filled with him whiffing on softball questions.

He's also currently embroiled in controversy. His own peers allege gross mismanagement of his $40 million in funds, producing almost no research and loaning university funds to family members to purchase luxury real estate.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#292

Post by whiddershins »

dralley wrote: post #283
JSavageOne wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing you just said disputes any of what Peterson has said. The fact that you mention him being a "drug addict" (he was briefly addicted to anti-depressants after his wife got cancer) and then use words like "whining" to try to discredit him without actually addressing or disputing anything he's said shows you just have an axe to grind with no substance.

>he was briefly addicted to anti-depressants That is a very severe understatement. He was so badly addicted to benzos (for years) that he ended up going to Russia to have himself put into a weeks-long medically-induced coma to go cold-turkey, which resulted in brain damage. (He insisted on that course of action, which Western doctors refused to go along with, for obvious reasons). That left him unable to walk or spea…

Ketamine? Source needed. He said it was a benzodiazepine. A prescribed anti-anxiety drug, which in rare cases is documented to create the exact withdrawal problem he had.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#294

Post by intalentive »

itsnotabtmoney wrote: post #62

This post treats the constant stream of "new public intellectuals" as some kind of organic, natural phenomenon. It's not, these people reach the top of your YouTube feed because someone wants them there. There's nothing organic about Eric Weinstein or Lex Fridman. People on this site are quick to call something "enshittification" when there are some obvious cash-grabs by megacorps, but are reluctant to admit that the…

>they subsequently got banned

Which wrongthinker are you referring to?

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#295

Post by michpoch »

mypastself wrote: post #141
michpoch wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serial obsessive fixation seems a problem right there in itself. There's a deep need that isn't being satisfied. What is it? I do feel that the author has some interesting personality trait - but I'm not sure if he's in the minority. After writing my comment I have realised that maybe it's why I never understood the appeal of Twitter. I have never had any "gurus" or "authorities" that I'd universally respect. I cou…

While I don’t use social media, nor am I prone to personality obsession like the author, there’s definitely something to be said about following an “authority” on Twitter and the like. Whether they’re an artist whose work you enjoy, a top expert in a field you’re interested in, or simply a person whose writing on some topic you appreciate, surely there’s an individual whose insight you’d find valuable enough to “foll…

> surely there’s an individual whose insight you’d find valuable enough to “follow”?

Not really. I'd rather follow a site with news in topics that are of my interests (e.g. https://electrek.co/) than some short-form messages of an individual. If these tweets would be containing links to their blog then I'd rather check the blog occasionally.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#296

Post by Angostura »

JSavageOne wrote: post #266
dralley wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people ever dislike public figures? Why do people dislike Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil or Jake Paul? Peterson is / was a drug addict that gives mediocre-at-best self-help advice, who also goes around whining about wokeness and saying hateful things, while somehow keeping a large audience and grifting them for millions of dollars. As far as public figures go, it's fairly typical for such a person to invite antipathy.

Nothing you just said disputes any of what Peterson has said. The fact that you mention him being a "drug addict" (he was briefly addicted to anti-depressants after his wife got cancer) and then use words like "whining" to try to discredit him without actually addressing or disputing anything he's said shows you just have an axe to grind with no substance.

> Nothing you just said disputes any of what Peterson has said

I thought it addressed it fairly directly:

* gives mediocre-at-best self-help advice * goes around whining about wokenes * saying hateful things

I suppose we should add add that he claims to speak authoritatively about subjects well out of the areas of his expertise.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#297

Post by xwiz »

renlo wrote: post #223
Joker_vD wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very rare that things are black or white, I can see it being all very grey Yes, it's much easier to paint the whole world one color than trying to paint it in two colors: you'd have to make distinctions and that's quite hard. But on the other hand, if two colors are not enough to paint the whole world, surely one color is even less enough?

Philosophical dithering; reduce any concept to micro black-and-white distinctions to create the perception of grayscale when viewed in whole

That might be an interesting experiment. Poll people on a large scale about dozens of minuscule moral issues that can be determined as GOOD or EVIL, then try to assemble more complex moral issues out of these building blocks. You could end up with some sort of statistical model of morality.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#298

Post by overrun11 »

ubermonkey wrote: post #185
Kye wrote: post #158

It might help to expand your horizons a bit. I see a lot of dudes on there I easily spotted for having limited range from the start. The trouble is people like this float too far off the ground and never come down to catch up. They usually lose their touch long before they gain the limelight, but are able to cruise a bit. The big tell: is "being a public intellectual" all they have? Do they have no experiences with t…

I can't hit the link --- getting a 503 -- but I'd add a few. Rebecca Solnit ( Men Explain Things To Me , widely awarded) Ta-Nehisi Coates ( Between the World and Me , MacArthur Fellow) Ibrahim X. Kendi ( How to Be an Antiracist , MacArthur Fellow)

I've read several of these works excited to hear intelligent challenges to my worldview but they always have the opposite effect. The arguments are _so_ bad, so fallacious and ridiculous that I can't help becoming more convinced that they must be wrong.

Kendi's grand plan involves an unelected review board with full veto power over any law or policy (no more separation of powers) made at any level of government (no more federalism!).

Could someone more sympathetic to these views help me out with what I'm missing?

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#299

Post by civilitty »

snorkel wrote: post #251
jimmydddd wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cousin of mine in her 20's has a podcast. I listened in on one and was surprised to hear that whe was giving out financial and investing advice. For context, she lives with her husband in his childhood bedroom with her inlaws, and works two or three days a week as a health professional. She has virtually no savings or investments, relies on her inlaws for food, and has an expensive Jeep on a 6 year loan. Interestin…

I can believe it. There are those skilled at performative intellectualism, i.e. sounding very smart and insightful, but the performance itself is the product, it is all they sell and offer. Whenever I hear a public speaker appealing to supposed ancient wisdom of obscure tribes and traditions who had better-than-modern diets, laws, monetary policy, medicine, footwear (or lack iof), etc then that tells me that it’s jus…

I’ve begun noticing this performative art play out more and more often on HN lately, especially in threads regarding medicine and healthcare. Apparently everyone became an armchair doctor and got their public policy degrees while on lockdown. It usually leads to a deep discussion with just one comment buried in the middle of the stack going “uhm, wtf?”

I should start a list of red flags in my notes. “Inflammation” comes to mind as well as any sort of explanation that invokes evolutionary biology or neuroscience.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#300

Post by halbritt »

wsve wrote: post #253
blueflow wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95% of times when i hear about Peterson, its someone trying to discredit him. Then i go to Youtube, search for what Peterson said about $topic, and can't find shit that i would even bother about. This stuff is getting creepy. Where is all the dislike coming from?

Let me give a personal story about this guy, A while back, when I was just beginning therapy, my therapist recommended I take an online personality test, which unbeknownst to me, was authored by Jordan Peterson. After I took the test, it gave 5-7 paragraphs explaining what each individual personality trait meant. Pretty boilerplate, but for some traits, when you got further down the explanations, it started feeling l…

> Ah. So what we have here is, regardless of whether you agree it's true or not, a political agenda masquerading as a personality test. It's purpose is to argue Peterson's vocal political belief that the gender pay gap is not an issue, because women are biologically better at being nurses instead of engineers. His proof? Just look at those Scandinavians, they have completely solved sexism (citation needed) and still see this gap

I'm not sure it's a political belief per se so much as a refutation of the implicit assumption that the gender pay gap is entirely the result of sexism and more likely the result of other factors, not least of which are the traits and proclivities of either sex.

I'm not prepared to debate whether or not his argument on the topic is legitimate, but it is something that he has elaborated on and supported with some data.

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