The new jordan peterson money spinner...

Joe Rogan, me (and Penn), and the Moon Hoax: Take III - Bad Astronomy


This is a good exam of Joe promoting pseudo science.... Although he's since changed his mind!

 

Double post sorry!

 

Thats he never getting a promotion?

 

Joe Rogan has absolutely no filters on good or bad ideas (and people) at all. The fact he's still friends with, and gives air time, to people like Alex Jones, Eddie Bravo and Ted Nugent shows he's not concerned with right and wrong or exploring the truth of things. He panders to his audience with his choice of guests.
There's a guy called Steven Novella. He's a prominent skeptic and critical thinker and has offered to go on the JRE.
But Rogan won't have him on because he knows Novella will pick apart all the crap (Shroom-tech!?!) Onnit sells, cryotherapy and all the other stuff Rogan likes. He knows he won't suck up to him or let him off on bringing up or promoting bull-poop.
Sadly though there are many people get their idea of being "intellectual" from listening to the JRE's hand picked guests.

Jordan Peterson was a guest on Radio 4 this morning talking to Jonathan Sacks about identity politics, personal responsibility, morals etc.
Self awareness and a sense of irony don't appear to be things either man has much time for.
Peterson said part of being a caring person was "not putting up with nonsense" (from other people). I kid you not. He of the chinese DNA and lobster/human comparisons. Don't stand for nonsense. Physician...heal thyself!
And then talking identity politics with someone wearing a kippah and was happy describing himself (at one time) as "chief rabbi" and is currently an active spokesman in the labour/anti-semitism arguments and media mud slinging.

 

I've never bothered with Jordan Peterson, I put him in the same box as the alt-right lot and left him there...in the attic. That was until the other day when Youtube autoplay thing starting playing his interview with Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience For Manchildren or whatever it's called. I don't know what was worse, Peterson or the comments left by his sycophantic and moronic fans. I was going to fill a sink with Domestos and put my head into it to remove any trace of what I heard and seen.

Anyway, nothing to really add to this discussion except that youtube user Call of Dusty does some slightly humorous videos exposing Peterson for the charlatan he is and basically accuses him of jumping on the "SJW-hysteria" bandwagon for profit. Can't post them 'cause there's bad words.

• Why Jordan Peterson Is A Charlatan In His Own Words.
• How Jordan Peterson Misrepresented Bill C-16, Pronoun Use, & Free-Speech To Get Famous.

 

If anyone is interested, this is a good science based guide to keto/low Carb diets and why they're not a magic bullet

The keto diet is a recipe for disaster

 

A calm and measured video about how quackery and pseudo-science pedlars manipulate debates to sneak nonsense in. Most of the examples are of Jordan Peterson.

 

While I was working yesterday I sat through 4 hours of Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson, moderated by Bret Weinstein. It was painful. They basically said nothing of import and certainly nothing that you couldn't find presented far better elsewhere.

What got me is how these guys are like rock stars now. Massive venues filled with whooping, adulatory crowds, hanging on their every dull word. Have we produced the dullest generation ever? What ever happened to rebellion and anti-heroes? I despair.

It reminded me of this skit:

 

Used to be a big fan of Sam Harris. Still like some of his writing and ideas. But he's way off on some things (racially profiling people for example) and has become far too right wing for me.
Peterson can do one.

 

I have no idea how anyone listens to Alex Jones for longer than 2 nano-seconds. Grating doesn't quite cover it.

 

I had a look at the contents of his book, 12 Rules to Life. I was quite curious as people are banging on about how life changing it all is etc etc. I don't think there's anything here that I haven't seen before....and said by less despicable people:

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back
2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping
3. Make friends with people who want the best for you
4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
6. Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
8. Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie
9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't
10. Be precise in your speech
11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

How and why people are falling for this con artist is beyond me.

Just as I read your post the first line to one of my favourite songs kicked in..."Have you realised how rock stars always seem to lie so much?"

 

That's a strange one. That's so open to abuse and personal opinion as to be almost meaningless. Strangely (but not unexpectedly) authoritarian.
What if someone dislikes gay people or marrying a different race or religion? Something utterly trivial like supporting a different sports team?
I think I have maybe 2 or 3 things that are real no-no's for my kids. Smoking, lack of manners/politeness and bullying or otherwise hurting other people. Everything else I may not agree with but I don't think there's much that will make me "dislike" them.

 

Gee, maybe in the 400 page book with about 275 source citations listed in the back, some of it might make more sense or answer some questions. Plot twist: the last chapter is about dogs and not cats.

I like reading interpretations based on limited information though so keep on keeping on! I mean, just let kids skateboard wherever and whenever they want?! That stuff is dangerous! The audacity!

 

I've heard a fair chunk of it. It's pap.

 

Ero; you've read the whole thing, right?

From the first 4 chapters, my interpretation is that he begins with an inane and uncontroversial tidbit of folksy wisdom, then he shoehorns in a Jungian mutation of Pascal's wager and Christian apologetics of a presuppositional flavour.

Essentially he wants people to be more obedient to the Christian God, which he accepts appears capricious and contradictory, so tipping the scales in favour of order and at the expense of chaos.

I would boil it down to its bones like this:

"Do as you're told."

"Why?"

"Because Big Sky Daddy says so."

"I don't believe in Big Sky Daddy."

"The existence of Big Sky Daddy is irrelevant."

"Why?"

"Stop being so ungrateful, you've never had it so good. Now shut up and toe the line, bucko."

Ero; how would you rate my characterisation so far?

 

My favourite excerpt:

 

I'll share my impression of the book later today. It is probably not what you think it will be. My morning is too busy with school and work to write any sort of in depth review on anything. Actually discussing relevant things other than going reeeeeeee!!!!! And complete interpretations with minimal exposure sounds enticing.

 

Cool, whenever you can.

Note that I was only commenting on the first 4 chapters, which I have actually suffered through.

Oh, and I'm not asking for a thorough review. Just wondering, if you disagree with my first impressions to give the reasons why you disagree.

 

Just wanted to say: I don't have an opinion as to what you might think of the book. I honestly have no idea, and I wouldn't want to guess.

I'm interested in your opinion because you're an intelligent guy and you've read the whole thing.

 

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

A Review
​

I'm not going to break down the book chapter by chapter, but rather I'm going to give a general review on the entire book and different things I think are important to note. As a preface, I was semi-forced to read the book for a Contract Law course I was taking over the summer. We had to read a self-help book and give a presentation on it. I'm not a fan of self help books, so I figured I would read Peterson's book out of interest in the controversies that usually surround him. I do not like Peterson enough (or anyone in this area of business/social realm) to financially support him out any sort of desire to build him up.

The book is twice as long as the normal self help genre tends to be. It sits at roughly 400 pages of material you would actually read (there's a section in the start and at the end that adds a lot more pages but nobody reads that nonsense). The majority of statements on psychology, anthropology, and mythology have sources cited. There are a total of 220 sources cited in the book. Whether you agree with Peterson's conclusions or not, or acknowledge the validity of various sources cited, you can't say Peterson is lazy in making his argument or that he relies purely on his own professional authority in order to make various points or arguments through the text.

The "12 Rules" are pretty simple stuff. What is unique is Peterson's approach to explain them from a specific perspective. Peterson relies on a few different things to give meaning to the rules and from what I gather they are as followed:

1.) His experience as a father.
2.) His experience as a clinical psychologist
3.) His interpretation of research where psychology is concerned
4.) His interpretation of mythological interpretation
5.) His interpretation on historical events from his perspective

Essentially Peterson attempts to merge scientific psychology, psychology in general (all the parts that don't really have tangible science to go with it but work), mythological interpretation, and historical events and figures in order to establish meaning to each of the rules. Mostly it's a mix of psychology and mythology, with a secondary theme of the differences (both measurable and not) between male and female. The book is also written from the perspective of helping men more than women. Peterson has stated himself he wrote the book to help young men, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. The last chapter specifically borders on being almost offensively biased towards being for men in the way you would find at clubs, sports, the military, or church groups that are geared specifically towards men. However, the majority of the book can be interpreted to be useful for anyone as there aren't major enough differences between men and women that 99% of things can't be applied to both sexes. Peterson also has stated this.

My Opinion

It's a self help book. Woo hoo?

These are the things I took issue with in the book:

1.) After reviewing some of the sources cited, I noticed some of them were from the field of evolutionary psychology. This is a relatively new field, and while there are personalities that I find respectful such as Steven Pinker, there are also people like Satoshi Kanazawa who writes articles saying black women aren't as attractive because they have higher testosterone. While I grant acknowledgement to Peterson's authority on the subject of psychology, this does not mean I grant acknowledgement in validity of the various sources he has cited or his conclusion based off of them. I found quite a few things to be a bit "iffy."

2.) While he tries to remain objective and not create a theme of "good vs. evil" in his mythological interpretations of Chaos and Order (Chaos being feminine, Order being masculine) I think in a lot of areas he failed in this. There are times where "chaos" is a good or bad thing, and there are times when "order" are a good or bad thing. From my own experiences working with a psychiatrist, and applied to his method of reasoning, many of my personal issues stem with the attempt to create order out of everything and not accepting the elements of chaos where they cannot be changed. The practice of dealing with the "chaos" element he makes use of is called "Acceptance Therapy" and has worked tremendously for me. His failure to remain neutral in his use of mythological interpretation of Chaos and Order skew the book more towards being for men, and open a door for potential resentment towards women if you're not keen enough to put things into the correct perspective on your own. I don't think Peterson hates women. I think this situation occurred because he was writing the book with young men in mind. His wife should write a book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Order" for young women so some balance can be made.

3.) He makes some grand statements on intent or revelations about historical figures and how they reacted towards things, or why things turned out a certain way. Everyone does this. I don't fault him for it, I think he's right in some of his statements, wrong in others, but it's up to anyone's interpretation and he does a good job of stating his argument and citing sources to strengthen it. Due to the subjectivity of it I'm not willing to buy into anything he says without looking into it further myself. ​

These are the things I liked about the book:

1.) He's citing sources and validating his arguments through more than just his own authority on a lot of the subject matter. Do I agree with all of it? Hell no. Yet it's a rare thing to see and I appreciate the amount of effort that goes into it. It makes me much more willing to at least consider things he has to say.

2.) I have a lot of experience working with a psychiatrist that has helped me go from not being able to walk outside due to severe anxiety and needing to be brought to appointments, to being a fully independent person again. I also have a good amount of experience being successful at different things. The majority of the advice he gives is simply sound advice. Whether you agree with his conclusions, or how he came to them, you could lead a decent life living by the advice in the book. So he got that part right at least, regardless of the controversial nature of some of the material used to make some of the conclusions contained within.

3.) I really enjoyed his attempt at mixing mythology with psychology. I'm agnostic and think there's a lot more to religious texts than people are willing to give credit for. I was brought up super religious (Christian) but fell out of it during my time in the military. Some of the way he uses religious doctrine (and it isn't all Christianity) caused me to think of things in a different way. When Peterson is asked, "do you believe in God?" and he answers, "well, it depends on what you mean by God," he's not skirting the question. You can believe in what he is defining as God both literally and figuratively, and as somebody who is agnostic I think it is easier for me to understand that than it is for people who are atheist or are undecided in that area.
​

Overall I think the book is worth the read if you're looking for self help stuff, but it's really not my cup of tea. To stroke my ego, I've done pretty well for myself and have come through a lot of ups and downs and have always maintained being successful. I didn't learn it from a book. An interesting thing to note in the self help realm where this book is concerned is that most self help books are centered around being successful in western culture. This book is about being content with yourself regardless of your status, and while some might read that as "toe the line!" I honestly don't. I'll reference DMX's album "Year of the Dog," "Come Thru," where he growls out, "we can't all walk" in one of his verses. That's a line I took to heart when I was a teenager when it came to success and failure and I think the reality of that applies to Peterson's views (see, who needs a self help book when you have DMX?).


On a final note, if you are:

1.) Atheist
2.) Extremely far left leaning (to the point where you don't separate group identity with individual identity and welfare)

then I really don't think you would appreciate a single thing within the book.