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The death of a public intellectual

thmsmlr.com

321–330 of 374 posts

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this just an appeal to authority?

As other comments said, this is not just an appeal to authority. He really is an authority. However, having established real authority, he then uses it to convey ideas which are less supported. https://youtu.be/eKwSDqJAum8?si=WKNMLmu8Y8OO7kwn&t=631 calls this a "science sandwich", and it is a good description. So, for instance, he'll have a series of lectures. Some are real science. Such as how the big 5 personality…

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Re: The death of a public intellectual

#322
Peterson seems strongly influenced by Jonathan and Matthieu Pageau who are doing quite a job at restoring meaning to the western world, linking rational and irrational thinking into a kind of universal theory with mathematical notations across verticals. It's really mind-blowing and imho, Matthieu Pageau is one of the greatest intellectuals of our time and he remains quite isolated and hidden. His content is infrequent, freshly brilliant, and challenging for those curious to learn it.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#323

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.

> Peterson is / was a drug addict

Peterson was taking doctor prescribed medication during a time when his wife was dying of cancer and like many in the US (opioid crisis) he got hooked on them.

He is now off of them. If anything this should be celebrated, not denigrated.

Like or dislike Peterson, it's important that we get our facts straight and avoid editorializing for the sake of manipulating readers.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#324
post #305

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…

The article isn't that long, they kind of address your criticism in there. They're lamenting the fact that no matter the person, every person whose ideas they find fascinating becomes less fascinating the longer they consume their content. They blame it on the fact that every subsequent idea is less researched and thought out than the one before because there is simply not enough time for them to have thought it out…

This better explains the flaws in Plato's philosophy after the Allegory of the Cave than I've ever seen.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#325
post #253

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…

Is it a political agenda if it's verifiable fact?

When someone says 2+2=4 is that political?

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let's say you support A, but know that many supporters of A also support B, C, and think that A implies D. Detractors also know that an argument that A implies D. If you are arguing for A, and you are versed in basic argumentation (as anyone in Peterson's situation is), it is reasonable to expect that you understand the landscape of the argument. As such, if you know that this will be used to discredit your argument,…

There's no indescriminate bombing of hospitals. Nice how you pushed this lie so casually.

There are very strong proofs that a hospital was hit by a failed rocket launch of a gazan militia against Israel. Plus Hamas and other militias keep their weapons under schools hospitals and mosques. When ever Israel bomb these sites it first gives notice to evacuate. It's in no way indescriminate. As opposed to a surprise raid against civilians in they're homes butchering their families, mothers before children, babies beheaded before their mothers and children tied up and burnt alive. Perhaps that is why ppl decrying the bombing of gaza while not mentioning what Hamas did get such strong condemnations

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#327
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think as men we have a deep seated need to have a strong leader we respect. If we went into the woods and made a tribe I’d for sure want Joe Rogan or Elon Musk making the decisions. Joe Rogan gives even the village idiot a fair shake to make their point on his podcast. It’s like watching a wise king preside over court. There’s not some big gay mystery here, it’s hardwired “if we go hunting a mammoth, I want Joe Rog…

I keep hearing this meme repeated lately (most recently by the My Pillow guy), and I guess my brain is wired differently, but oh boy, would I hate that society.

"Great person" ideology never works. Nobody is right about most things, and nobody is an expert on more than a few things, it simply isn't feasible.

I don't understand asking non-experts their opinion on basically anything.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#328

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?

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…

Unfortunatelly, the video is incomplete. The presenter explains what Peterson said and shows a video of his reaction to the accusations. What is missing is the actual video snippet of Peterson performing the fallacy - i.e. show me what Peterson said, don't tell me what he said. Preferably at least a few the seconds leading up and shortly after the timerange in question should be included to minimize the risk of an out-of-context citation.

As it is now I have to go searching for the interview in question if I want to check for myself if he actually did a bait-and-switch, as only evidence for the switch part is actually presented.

If the video featured proper citations, one for the bait and one for the switch, I might've been able to form an opinion, but alas, for now it is not meant to be.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#329

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.

Just random stuff from Twitter, because I'm not going to waste my time on his books.

"You should be a monster, an absolute monster, and then you should learn how to control it."

https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/17168812447500333...

Or you could just be a decent person. It's not that hard.

"The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don’t want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence."

https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/17150743954154250...

Counterexamples: Trump, Elon Musk's tenure at Twitter, Boris Johnson. Clearly the current system is not purely a meritocracy. This is also a completely vague statement, so plenty of room for weasling. What exactly does "predicated on competence" mean? I once read that someone fairly famous wrote "Be precise In Your Speech". Oh yeah, that was Peterson.

Women deeply want men who are competent and powerful. And I don’t mean power in that they can exert tyrannical control over others. That’s not power. That’s just corruption.

https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/17136892453603086...

Misogynistic crap. Women are not some undifferentiated glob. Some women don't even have any sexual interest in men!

Also retweeting climate change denial etc.

Re: The death of a public intellectual

#330

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…

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?

The Majority Report with Sam Seder on YouTube have good videos breaking down things that Jordan Peterson has said. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Majority+report...
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