Current Events > 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B Peterson comes out tomorrow, who's getting it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

COVxy posted...

It's his first bloody rule and he begins it by spouting pseudoscience! How can you not see how that might sully the validity?

Have you read the book yet? You'd enjoy it and you could discuss it in a much clearer way than assuming half of his premises like a "power pose"

COVxy posted...

I couldn't give a fuck, but the fact the large proportion of his fanbase on here are vocal anti-SJW people is no coincidence.

"I don't want to hear from a guy who disagrees with my worldview because a lot of his fans disagree with my worldview."
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I mean, thus far, all the enlightened who have read the book have been unable to demonstrate how it's any different, or even just provide me with the citations he uses to justify "stand up straight". Thus far, the only one to do so is Mal, and one of the two is debunked (and didn't provide evidence for the claim to begin with), and the other doesn't provide evidence for the claim.
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COVxy posted...

I mean, thus far, all the enlightened who have read the book have been unable to demonstrate how it's any different, or even just provide me with the citations he uses to justify "stand up straight". Thus far, the only one to do so is Mal, and one of the two is debunked (and didn't provide evidence for the claim to begin with), and the other doesn't provide evidence for the claim.

I offered an explanation briefly but again, this isn't a 12 page book.

Each rule has about 50 or so pages of nuance that is discussed.

I still don't even know why you keep posting in a topic about a book you don't want to even read. That doesn't seem suspect to you?

I've asked for a very simple thing, what science does he actually cite to back his first rule. It doesn't require you to reiterate the entire book, it just requires you to go to the section of "why standing up straight will increase your confidence" and provide me with the scientific literature he cites.
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COVxy posted...

I've asked for a very simple thing, what science does he actually cite to back his first rule. It doesn't require you to reiterate the entire book, it just requires you to go to the section of "why standing up straight will increase your confidence" and provide me with the scientific literature he cites.

No it really does require me to reiterate the chapter because that's how his arguments are. Again...nuance.

It's not just him saying "hey study x shows that this does this, ergo do this"

He writing about how to act in the world, and unless you think science can tell us how we ought to be, I can't comprehend why you would need a study which can't even be done to at least provide enough charity to the author to at least hear out the rest of the argument

I mean...one of his rules in the book is literally "assume the person you are listening to might know something you dont". Again, you should get the Book! You might like it.

So his writing is not grounded in the science he's an supposedly expert in then?
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COVxy posted...

No, but it's a good strawman you've latched onto. Keep at it, give that strawman hell!

Do you literally not see how you constructed a strawman with the pronoun debacle and have set out to attack it? Do you not see the hypocrisy? Are you that dense?

clearaflagrantj posted...

COVxy posted...

No, but it's a good strawman you've latched onto. Keep at it, give that strawman hell!

Do you literally not see how you constructed a strawman with the pronoun debacle and have set out to attack it? Do you not see the hypocrisy? Are you that dense?

How have I done that? I couldn't give a shit about the pronoun debate.
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COVxy posted...

So his writing is not grounded in the science he's an supposedly expert in then?

Sure it is

But again...show me a science that tells us how to act in the world

You seem scared to read the book. I would think a scientist such as yourself would WANT to hear the strongest argument. I make no qualms about not being able to express these ideas as elegantly as he does.

Actually its grounded more in moral truth which he believes, as any good pragmatist does, that sci3nce is nestled in

Romes187 posted...

Sure it is

Romes187 posted...

It's not just him saying "hey study x shows that this does this, ergo do this"

He writing about how to act in the world, and unless you think science can tell us how we ought to be, I can't comprehend why you would need a study which can't even be done to at least provide enough charity to the author to at least hear out the rest of the argument

These contradict each other. If he's not using evidence based reasoning, if he's not grounding each claim with a scientific study, then no, it isn't grounded in science.
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COVxy posted...

Romes187 posted...

Sure it is

Romes187 posted...

It's not just him saying "hey study x shows that this does this, ergo do this"

He writing about how to act in the world, and unless you think science can tell us how we ought to be, I can't comprehend why you would need a study which can't even be done to at least provide enough charity to the author to at least hear out the rest of the argument

These contradict each other. If he's not using evidence based reasoning, if he's not grounding each claim with a scientific study, then no, it isn't grounded in science.

Can you read the post I stated right after that?

The one where I said "Actually..."

as in "Well not quite, let me rephrase"

Again, you are still saying that it isn't grounded in science. Moreso grounded in a 'moral truth', whatever that means.
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COVxy posted...

Again, you are still saying that it isn't grounded in science. Moreso grounded in a 'moral truth', whatever that means.

Yes that's why I said "Actually..." as in "wait no it's not completely grounded in science".

But if you don't understand American pragmatism, I'd recommend you do some reading on that first

Or you know what....never mind. You win, so you don't have to post here anymore.

Maybe you'll have time to go read the book now :)

I wanted to click out of this once I saw David fucking Brooks was the author, but...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/opinion/jordan-peterson-moment.html

For much of Western history, he argues, Christianity restrained the human tendency toward barbarism. But God died in the 19th century, and Christian dogma and discipline died with him. That gave us the age of ideology, the age of fascism and communism and with it, Auschwitz, Dachau and the gulag.

This here: super bullshit. It only works if you ignore pre-Neitzche atrocities like wiping out Native Americans or the existence of slavery or pogroms (in other words, if you ignore anyone non-white), or if for some reason you exclude these things from your definition of barbarism. It's possible Brooks is oversimplifying Peterson's views here, but this overview doesn't pass the smell test.

All of life is perched, Peterson continues, on the point between order and chaos. Chaos is the realm without norms and rules. Chaos, he writes, is the impenetrable darkness of a cave and the accident by the side of the road. Its the mother grizzly, all compassion to her cubs, who marks you as potential predator and tears you to pieces. Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection. Women are choosy maters. Most men do not meet female human standards.

This is just the fancy version of the Chad shit.

Much of Petersons advice sounds to me like vague exhortatory banality. Like Hobbes and Nietzsche before him, he seems to imagine an overly brutalistic universe, nearly without benevolence, beauty, attachment and love. His recipe for self-improvement is solitary, nonrelational, unemotional. Id say the lives of young men can be improved more through loving attachment than through Petersons joyless and graceless calls to self-sacrifice.

jfc, when David Brooks is calling you banal...
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This guy is a beta lmao
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Antifar posted...

This here: super bullshit. It only works if you ignore pre-Neitzche atrocities like wiping out Native Americans or the existence of slavery or pogroms (in other words, if you ignore anyone non-white), or if for some reason you exclude these things from your definition of barbarism.

You might be looking at it the wrong way. I'm an atheist and to me, there is no doubt that religion has caused a ridiculous amount of destruction

But it also built our great cities, much of our current social structure, and Neitzche brought up a decent idea about the structural integrity of religious thought (in Catholicism) actually leading to the scientific revolution. You can't just look at the bad, and you can't just look at the good. That's why we have to "rescue our father from the whale"...bring our culture up to date. Because there IS some good.

Antifar posted...

This is just the fancy version of the Chad shit.

Can you elaborate? I really like the chaos / order metaphor for masculine and feminine.

Antifar posted...

jfc, when David Brooks is calling you banal...

Which part do you find banal

here's a quick vid of him speaking about his "belief" in "god" if anyone is interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfvVu7__vy0

Romes187 posted...

You might be looking at it the wrong way. I'm an atheist and to me, there is no doubt that religion has caused a ridiculous amount of destruction

But it also built our great cities, much of our current social structure, and Neitzche brought up a decent idea about the structural integrity of religious thought (in Catholicism) actually leading to the scientific revolution. You can't just look at the bad, and you can't just look at the good. That's why we have to "rescue our father from the whale"...bring our culture up to date. Because there IS some good.

It's not about religion, in my view; it's that this idea that our barbarism was tamed up until ~1880 is at odds with all the barbarism that happened. Religion absolutely had positive impacts, but if you're gonna give it credit for (as Brooks puts Peterson's view) "restraining the human tendency towards barbarism," it would help your argument if barbarism had actually been restrained.
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Romes187 posted...

Can you elaborate? I really like the chaos / order metaphor for masculine and feminine.

Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection. Women are choosy maters. Most men do not meet female human standards.

Remove the metaphor, and what is this? It's a foreveralone post about how "80% of women only want 20% of men."
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Antifar posted...

It's not about religion, in my view; it's that this idea that our barbarism was tamed up until ~1880 is at odds with all the barbarism that happened. Religion absolutely had positive impacts, but if you're gonna give it credit for (as Brooks puts Peterson's view) "restraining the human tendency towards barbarism," it would help your argument if barbarism had actually been restrained.

Yeah I mean this is an old argument for sure. Peterson's side would say well look at the 20th century and look at all the blood compared to before

but obviously thats a function of our technological progress. But a good question to ask here is, what would that progress have looked like had we not killed our religious thinking off?

Again, I'm not an expert like Peterson is in 20th century genocide...he literally studied it for a decade (well according to him anyways). So I'm sure his arguments are more nuanced....he has hundreds and hundreds of hours of material...hard to sift through for quick answers to complex questions.

Romes187 posted...

You might be looking at it the wrong way. I'm an atheist and to me, there is no doubt that religion has caused a ridiculous amount of destruction

But it also built our great cities, much of our current social structure, and Neitzche brought up a decent idea about the structural integrity of religious thought (in Catholicism) actually leading to the scientific revolution. You can't just look at the bad, and you can't just look at the good. That's why we have to "rescue our father from the whale"...bring our culture up to date. Because there IS some good.

the point is that ol' Jordy is ignoring the pre-Nietzche bad
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Antifar posted...

Romes187 posted...

Can you elaborate? I really like the chaos / order metaphor for masculine and feminine.

Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection. Women are choosy maters. Most men do not meet female human standards.

Remove the metaphor, and what is this? It's a foreveralone post about how "80% of women only want 20% of men."

Oh I see. I think he's getting Peterson's views on chaos wrong.

Chaos is all that is unknown, but also pure absolute potential. Mother nature, etc. The feminine.

Order is the known, culture, the masculine. But also the tyrannical father, etc.

The point where those cross is where meaning is found in Peterson's worldview. I like that. It makes sense to me psychologically, and practically.

Not sure how sexual selection got in there, but that's a pretty shallow part of a grander idea imo

averagejoel posted...

Romes187 posted...

You might be looking at it the wrong way. I'm an atheist and to me, there is no doubt that religion has caused a ridiculous amount of destruction

But it also built our great cities, much of our current social structure, and Neitzche brought up a decent idea about the structural integrity of religious thought (in Catholicism) actually leading to the scientific revolution. You can't just look at the bad, and you can't just look at the good. That's why we have to "rescue our father from the whale"...bring our culture up to date. Because there IS some good.

the point is that ol' Jordy is ignoring the pre-Nietzche bad

I honestly don't think he is.

But here is a little more of his ideas on the death of god if you're interested. There are longer ones, but I found people are more inclined to watch shorter ones then go on to more nuanced arguments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8u0CEvqEY

Romes187 posted...

Oh I see. I think he's getting Peterson's views on chaos wrong.

He's quoting those words from the book.
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Antifar posted...

Romes187 posted...

Oh I see. I think he's getting Peterson's views on chaos wrong.

He's quoting those words from the book.

Wrong may be the wrong word....incomplete?

Female sexual selection is indeed a part of the chaotic feminine element

But why should that one small part allow you to dismiss the rest of the idea with a wave of the hand by saying "oh so 80% of women pick 20% of men"

Do you kinda see where I'm coming from?

Romes187 posted...

Yeah I mean this is an old argument for sure. Peterson's side would say well look at the 20th century and look at all the blood compared to before

Whose blood? I won't deny that the 20th century had more war in Europe than the one prior, but slavery and colonization in the Americas and Asia (and Africa by the end of the century) were hugely violent enterprises
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here's a quick blurb from JRE about chaos and order...only about a minute and a half

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-XR5RW-nS4

again, this is touching the surface of this idea but its a nicely put argument for only a minute vid

Antifar posted...

Romes187 posted...

Yeah I mean this is an old argument for sure. Peterson's side would say well look at the 20th century and look at all the blood compared to before

Whose blood? I won't deny that the 20th century had more war in Europe than the one prior, but slavery and colonization in the Americas and Asia (and Africa by the end of the century) were hugely violent enterprises

I agree! Saying the 20th century was bloody doesn't discount the other violent enterprises

You might enjoy his biblical lectures Antifar

again, I'm as atheist as they come but from a psychological perspective, they are really interesting stories

Romes187 posted...

I agree! Saying the 20th century was bloody doesn't discount the other violent enterprises

Then was our barbarism really kept in check, as Brooks suggests Peterson believes?

Again, I could care less whether he thinks it was religion or the Russian Tsar that did it; the fact that he thinks it happened is wrong. It's bad history.
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Antifar posted...

Romes187 posted...

I agree! Saying the 20th century was bloody doesn't discount the other violent enterprises

Then did our religious impulse really tame barbarism, as Brooks suggests Peterson believes?

I have no idea. I do think, given nuclear power, we would be much LESS likely to drop the bomb if we had the looming threat of God in our minds for sure.

But we're both looking at it from a nonbeliever aspect. We have no idea how a person in the 1600's, who had a radically different view of how the world works and how they view the world, would act in a comparable situation...so its a tough argument to make, but one worth thinking about.

and something maybe interesting to think about

your examples tend to be between groups. I don't think anyone can deny that violence among different groups has always and will always exist

but I think (and this is conjecture) he is also looking at how much damage, say in Stalinist Russia, groups did to themselves

The way that review puts it, he's just the Fight Club guy but with a degree.
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Romes187 posted...

your examples tend to be between groups. I don't think anyone can deny that violence among different groups has always and will always exist

but I think (and this is conjecture) he is also looking at how much damage, say in Stalinist Russia, groups did to themselves

It depends on how you define groups, of course; race isn't the only way to group people. I think the Stalinists found ways to turn people who may have shared their ethnic backgrounds into "others".

Also, the American Civil War would be an example of an intra-group conflict, depending, again, on how those groups are defined.
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Antifar posted...

Romes187 posted...

your examples tend to be between groups. I don't think anyone can deny that violence among different groups has always and will always exist

but I think (and this is conjecture) he is also looking at how much damage, say in Stalinist Russia, groups did to themselves

It depends on how you define groups, of course; race isn't the only way to group people. I think the Stalinists found ways to turn people who may have shared their ethnic backgrounds into "others".

Also, the American Civil War would be an example of an intra-group conflict, depending, again, on how those groups are defined.

I agree with you on Stalin turning people into others. But do you agree that if there was a religious structure in place, this would be much harder to do?

As to the Civil War, I agree that is an intra-group conflict. But it also happened after the so called death of god, though not after he proclaimed it. Remember, he was commenting on how science, in a way, dismantled these religious substructures.

Though it could also be an exception...or it could be that you're right on this. I think the discussion is definitely worth having.

Have the book on Audible. About 30% through it. Pretty good but nothing super groudnbreaking if you have listened to him before. Still its good to listen to him read it and not worry about an excessive amount of conservative pandering that you get sometimes in interviews/lectures.
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Mal_Fet posted...

COVxy posted...

Mal_Fet posted...

Does their methodology no different than the study refuted by your source

The methodology of the paper he cited is less rigorous, in fact.

So where's the collection of failed repeated studies

Like, I'm still not getting why you expect me to accept your personal analysis here over professionals.

@COVxy
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You already know but are being intellectually dishonest. No reason to continue the conversation.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS9W-wlJHPA
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@COVxy posted...

You already know but are being intellectually dishonest.

I just want you to back your claim that Peterson used a bad source. Can you show that or not?

And no I'm not going to accept your personal analysis as a source. You made a big stink about us providing you a source earlier, so now it's time for you to pay up. Where is it?
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Mal_Fet posted...

@COVxy posted...

You already know but are being intellectually dishonest.

I just want you to back your claim that Peterson used a bad source. Can you show that or not?

And no I'm not going to accept your personal analysis as a source. You made a big stink about us providing you a source earlier, so now it's time for you to pay up. Where is it?

Already posted it. Facial feedback theory is a dead theory, results driven by a massive file drawer problem. The systematic replication didn't find even the tiniest glimmer of hope for this effect.
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COVxy posted...

Already posted it.

You posted a refutation to a completely different study with completely different authors. In no way does your refutation sink the entire concept of posture affecting mood.

Wheres the refutation of Peterson's article then?
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Mal_Fet posted...

You posted a refutation to a completely different study with completely different authors. In no way does your refutation sink the entire concept of posture affecting mood.

It sinks the idea of facial feedback, which is what the article he cited was testing.
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COVxy posted...

It sinks the idea of facial feedback,

It does not. It only sinks that particular methodology.

You're really trying hard to act like not citing a single refutation of it is gonna prove you're right. But look, it has been 20 years since that study was peer-reviewed and published with your 1988 study already known to the psychologist community for a decade. Obviously, those peers did not believe that the refutation you posted was relevant to the 1998 study.

Disproving Peterson's source is really easy; post a source disproving (specifically) the 1998 study and I will accept it like I did earlier before I realized you were trying to pull a fast one. It's been out for 20 years. If the study is wrong, a refutation exists. So where is it?
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Mal_Fet posted...

You're really trying hard to act like not citing a single refutation of it is gonna prove you're right. But look, it has been 20 years since that study was peer-reviewed and published with your 1988 study already known to the psychologist community for a decade. Obviously, those peers did not believe that the refutation you posted was relevant to the 1998 study.

Disproving Peterson's source is really easy; post a source disproving (specifically) the 1998 study and I will accept it like I did earlier before I realized you were trying to pull a fast one. It's been out for 20 years. If the study is wrong, a refutation exists. So where is it?

That's not the way science or scientific evidence works. You know this, but you are hanging onto the technicality of the different paper because you think it's a technical win. It's intellectually dishonest, and should be transparent to everyone. The study isn't "wrong", it's just likely a statistical anomaly hidden by the file drawer effect.

The theory, the fundamental theory he is talking about when using that paper as a citation, has been called into question in the recent years. Very simple, if something seems like it doesn't exist, you don't cite literature and advise people based on it.
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COVxy posted...

That's not the way science or scientific evidence works.

Oh the ironing

A study that refutes another study does not forevermore disprove the theory that the first study claimed to prove.

COVxy posted...

The theory, the fundamental theory he is talking about when using that paper as a citation, has been called into question in the recent years.

Oh? Then post this study that called it question.
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Already did.
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