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The death of a public intellectual

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Re: The death of a public intellectual

#311

Post by Obscurity4340 »

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.

> was briefly addicted to anti-depressants

This is incredibly wrong and convenient. He was addicted to benzos—not anti-depressants. Benzos are anti-anxiety drugs but it is more helpful to think about them as"alcohol in a pill". Peterson is, in a sense, not distinct from an alcoholic.

I'm not one to shit on drug addicts, hell, pot-kettle. But Peterson rubs me the wrong way because of his audacity in acting as if he is above the "usual" drug addict and that he can cheaply sell you the keys in the form of clichéd advice and can sell you better shit if you privately pay him to consult with him when he has to go all the way to fucking Russia to recieve "adequate treatment".

I just can't even with this guy. Like, Im not gonna say he has zero helpful ideas but they are tainted with the nonsense that helps nobody but himself.

Edit: i would like to find out the length of the supposef addiction as well. I just hate when people lie about this shit or polish it up when such stories should be unvarnished and relatively congruent with that which is known objectively or publiy particularly in such a public facing individual.

Edit: he also has the perfect justification so its interesting if his accounts depart from a more objective one in a way that is palpable

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#312

Post by badpun »

jlos wrote: post #235
virtualritz wrote: post #211

It's noteworthy but sadly not surprising[1], that someone like Peterson is listed as an 'intellectual'. This man talks like ChatGPT when asked to clad a text of the most basic ideas, frequently completely missing the point, into sophisticated-sounding language. The other names tell me nothing; but having the former in the list kept me from looking up the latter. [1] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellec…

So you would not consider someone who has the following CV an intellectual? - Has published or co-authored over 100+ academic papers in multiple fields - Has h-index of 41, i10-index of 77, with 21,000 citations [0] - Taught at Harvard - Tenured Professor at the largest University in Canada - 20+ year clinical practice - Best selling author with over 5 million copies sold You don't have to like his ideas, but if this…

I agree with Chomsky's definition [1]: intellectual is a person who tries to talk intelligently in public about affairs that are relevant to the general public. Being a top scentist or a top sellng author does not neccessarily make you an intellectual.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xf5H00ACws&t=2527s

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#313

Post by racked »

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…

Adding to that:

Stephen Fry. His documentary about bipolar disorder, for instance.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#314

Post by RationalDino »

vkou wrote: post #302
RationalDino wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are experiencing is called "the controversy bait-and-switch". Peterson is a master of it. What he does is say something designed to look like a dog whistle to get people upset. Then when challenged on it, he say something reasonable to pull in fans. Then he says something else which is designed to be misunderstood, and repeats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKwSDqJAum8&t=244s explains it, and shows an actu…

This is also called the "motte-and-bailey fallacy", and it's utterly insufferable. It's the off-internet equivalent of 'I'm just trolling, bro, why do you haff to be mad ;)' What confuses the matter further is that some of his advice is actually common-sense good-advice. He's not famous or controversial for giving that common-sense good-advice, though.

There comes a point where a taxonomy of fallacies is just splitting hairs. But these two are ones that I would choose to distinguish, even though they have a lot of sympathy.

The point of a controversy bait-and-switch is to draw attention and followers based on how reasonable you are. I already explained how it works above.

A motte-and-bailey fallacy, for those who don't know, is that you have two statements that you equivocate between. The motte is very easy to defend. The bailey is an attack. When you are attacking you switch to the bailey. When you are defending you switch to the motte. And then you switch back by pretending that your defense of the motte actually advanced your bailey.

I see this as different because you actually DO intend to convince people of the bailey if you can. And while in the controversy bait and switch you make it clear when you flip between positions, in the mott-and-bailey you equivocate and attempt to leave people confused.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEDjd_Nqb4&t=262s is a different video from the same person demonstrating Jordan Peterson using a mott-and-bailey fallacy to advance his position.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#315

Post by Jensson »

badpun wrote: post #312
jlos wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would not consider someone who has the following CV an intellectual? - Has published or co-authored over 100+ academic papers in multiple fields - Has h-index of 41, i10-index of 77, with 21,000 citations [0] - Taught at Harvard - Tenured Professor at the largest University in Canada - 20+ year clinical practice - Best selling author with over 5 million copies sold You don't have to like his ideas, but if this…

I agree with Chomsky's definition [1]: intellectual is a person who tries to talk intelligently in public about affairs that are relevant to the general public. Being a top scentist or a top sellng author does not neccessarily make you an intellectual. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xf5H00ACws&t=2527s

> tries to talk intelligently

How would you define this though? People couldn't even agree whether gpt-3 talks intelligently or not.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#316

Post by emadabdulrahim »

BryanLegend wrote: post #215
virtualritz wrote: post #211

It's noteworthy but sadly not surprising[1], that someone like Peterson is listed as an 'intellectual'. This man talks like ChatGPT when asked to clad a text of the most basic ideas, frequently completely missing the point, into sophisticated-sounding language. The other names tell me nothing; but having the former in the list kept me from looking up the latter. [1] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellec…

I'm sure I'll get downvoted here, but I think Peterson is brilliant. His books have absolutely given me insightful ideas that have improved my life and relationships.

I'm 100% with you on that. I've never heard meaningful or valid criticism of him. It's all lazy hand wavy utterances that indicate all of his critics never listen to him for more than 20 mins.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#317

Post by hotnfresh »

blueflow wrote: post #287
RationalDino wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are experiencing is called "the controversy bait-and-switch". Peterson is a master of it. What he does is say something designed to look like a dog whistle to get people upset. Then when challenged on it, he say something reasonable to pull in fans. Then he says something else which is designed to be misunderstood, and repeats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKwSDqJAum8&t=244s explains it, and shows an actu…

Ngl, its a big PITA if you say thing A, and some people understand A, B, C and D and then get mad at you for supporting D. This happened to me some times before and i absolutely hate it. Seeing your argument that its a baddy thing makes me feel very uneasy. And the "dog whistle" thing you mentioned is conceptually that, accusing someone of saying something they didn't exactly say. I hate this concept. How would someo…

I love murder as long as the targets are the right sort ;-)

"Holy shit... what? What's... the 'right sort'?"

Get your panties out of a twist, liberals, I just mean I like to eat animal meat.

See? These liberals want to force us all to be vegans.

That's the basic dance going on.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#318

Post by badpun »

Jensson wrote: post #315
badpun wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with Chomsky's definition [1]: intellectual is a person who tries to talk intelligently in public about affairs that are relevant to the general public. Being a top scentist or a top sellng author does not neccessarily make you an intellectual. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xf5H00ACws&t=2527s

> tries to talk intelligently How would you define this though? People couldn't even agree whether gpt-3 talks intelligently or not.

The emphasis is on "tries", i.e. genuinely puts a mental effort (including research etc.) into forming an opinion.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#319

Post by Slow_Hand »

dralley wrote: post #236
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?

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.

There seems to be a lot of disagreement in the replies to this comment around the exact nature of Jordan's health troubles/medical problems in 2019/2020. This is the most direct recounting of what happened, for anyone who cares to take a look:

Peterson Family Update June 2020 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzRbEMzr0k8

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#320

Post by migro23 »

KittenInABox wrote: post #309
migro23 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see any problem in using the term you are trying to define in your definition of that term?

In the context of an entire presumed talk, conference, interview, panel, or whatever presumably about race and racism... nah not really lol. Dude only really has about a minute to respond, and he probably spent already at least 30-45 minutes about it. At some point if I ask a biologist after a discussion about biology what a biologist is, "a biologist studies biology" makes sense. If you go to an entire talk/convo/co…

With all the respect that is possible on an anonymous forum like Hacker News but I think you are wrong to not be concerned about a person receiving millions in donation funding (1) to counter racism who defines racism using the same word. It's a serious red flag and with the benefit of hindsight if you read the NY times article linked below there was and is very good reason to be concerned.

The person who asked the question states that he listened to the talk and did not hear any definition of racism. This is why he asked the question. If you're really curious you can listen to the whole talk (2). Not that I would recommend listening to the whole thing.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/opinion/columnists/kendi-...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzuOlyyQlug

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