Jordan Peterson is bad news!

From Summer Jobs thread

Mr. Magoo wrote:

 

ed'd to add:  is it a coincidence that we're seeing a very similar "argument" in the Peterson thread?

Apparently, the non-binary are being assaulted and harrassed and murdered at an alarming rate, while an uncaring public looks the other way and refuses to say "xir".

That isn't what is being said. Rather what is being suggested is a small accomodation that helps them feel respected in a world in which most have been bullied and targeted due to their identity, and yes even murdered. It is a small thing to ask for and a small thing to grant as a common courtesy.

On a personal level no one is forcing anyone to use it. In a professional capacity I think it is up to the organization to decide whether or not to require it of employees on the job. Just like they can tell employees to say please and thank-you. The University is entitled to consider this a fair accomodation for a student to ask for. The professor does know the student's name so could just not use pronouns at all. Instead the professor decided to bring his personal opinion and politics into it. 

On a personal level it's just churlish not to accomodate someone on the rare occasion if they request it. 

Just as gay marriage has yet to lead us to beastiality marriages accomodating the ocassional individual who wants gender neutral pronouns is unlikely to lead to a endless number of variations and multiple people in your life all expecting you to remember a different set specifically for them. 

Thanks. I had been meaning to watch that. I heard Fry came off best, and in fact there was a clip on radio of him refering to his partner in probably the most diplomatic terms possible. To paraphrase, he said it showed the wide range of that side of the debate.

Here's one. Took me less than five seconds with the ol' Google.

Pondering wrote:

They would probably be included in the "gay" stats as anyone who appears gender non-conformist seems to be put in that general category. 

It's a good thing then that we passed a law that specifies discrimination and crime based on gender identity and expression. Now those people and those acts won't just be lumped in where they may not apply.

laine lowe wrote:

Watched the Munk Debate on CPAC yesterday and Peterson comes across as a petulant and humourless. Michael Eric Dyson was brilliant. Michelle Goldberg was very good at grounding her points in ways that are easily understood by a non-academic viewer/listener - she really brought up some great points. Stephen Fry is always witty and I think although what he was trying to argue was not bad per se - political correctness being a fig leaf for progress while not really achieving game and giving fodder to the right to attack the left - I think that he didn't expect the conversation to go deeper into issues that drive what is considered political correctness. I personally think that he looked like he wished he could jump ship and cross to the other side. Peterson was so sour and put upon that he had no rapport with anyone, including Stephen Fry who was on his side of the debate.

For those who missed it, here is the link:

http://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/cpac-special/episodes/62242210

https://www.munkdebates.com/The-Debates/Political-Correctness

Despite the above, the "con" side (Fry and Peterson) was declared the winner as they moved more of the audience to their side. I wonder what gives?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Pondering wrote:

You have to be kidding. Not all jurisdictions identity hate crimes as such and not all keep track of them. Men have been followed home from gay bars and attacked. I doubt the attackers request clarification on gender identity and sexual orientation. 

Um. Pondering.

What I am saying is that it is a good thing we have Bill C-16 passed into law, even if some people seem to think it is "compelling speech" even though it doesn't.

Up until now someone getting assaulted because of having hair too long or too short or wearing the wrong clothes was considered a homophobic act. What it really is is an attack based on gender expression.

Some miscommunication. I was responding to Magoo's request for evidence that anyone had been killed over having a binary identity. My point was the same you are making. 

In the US, the laws are different for every state. Some states allow the death penalty for "ordinary" murders, while a lot of them require there to be some aggravating factor (multiple murders, a murder committed in the course of another crime like bank robbery, murder of a police officer, and hate crimes are some of the examples). Seeking the penalty is up to the prosecutor; imposing it's up to the jury.

Iowa doesn't have capital punishment at the state level, so the perpetrators in this case are being investigated under federal hate crime laws, which do entail the death penalty. Apparently Jeff Sessions's homophobia is outweighed in this case by his eagerness to execute people. (Providing further context: there's been a long-running dispute in the US about whether federal prosecutors should use capital punishment in states that have abolished it, like against the Boston Marathon bomber. Sessions is almost certainly making a point to do so in this case as part of his general pro-execution philosophy.)

If you're wondering if federal prosecutors made up the whole non-binary thing for some reason, then no, this article confirms Johnson identified that way.

Thank you very much CCO that was very informative and helpful.

Peterson is a very smart man and very capable debater. He's able to quickly capitalize when his opponent stumbles which has an unsettling effect on people he's debating with. He believes in what he's debating and not just trying to score points and seldom lets his emotions get the best of him.

Yeah, the comments about him in that British interview with Cathy Newman were kind of funny (in a sad and creepy way) because they mentioned how cool he was. Having seen him go off in other debates and setting, you can see what is going on under the surface. That would be this:

https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/975941537619107840?lang=en

Somebody else just wrote another apologetic ramble about him, totally ignoring the bulk of what he is doing, and putting the focus about how he helps young men find their way (also kind of creepy, when you think about the death threats some who disagree with him have been getting). And sure, his harshest rebukes are against men, not women. Being told to clean your room is way worse than being equated with Stalin and Mao.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/22/what-the-left-gets...

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I fucked up responding to Cody but I have to say that I am really disappointed that Peterson was considered the winner of the debate.

I'm not at all quarrelling here, but I'm disappointed that we seem to want anyone to tell us who "won" a debate.

I'm totally fine with pointing out fallacies or "truthiness" or even an awkward posture or a dishonest face.  But are we actually scoring these like a boxing match now?  The problem, IMHO, is that if "men are better" beats "women are better" by one "vote", that legitimizes the idea that that side actually and meaningfully "won" anything at all.

It's like holding a poll on "the best flavour of ice cream", and then forever after we all have to acknowledge that one specific flavour of ice cream is superior to the rest.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

I fucked up responding to Cody but I have to say that I am really disappointed that Peterson was considered the winner of the debate.

I'm not at all quarrelling here, but I'm disappointed that we seem to want anyone to tell us who "won" a debate.

I'm totally fine with pointing out fallacies or "truthiness" or even an awkward posture or a dishonest face.  But are we actually scoring these like a boxing match now?  The problem, IMHO, is that if "men are better" beats "women are better" by one "vote", that legitimizes the idea that that side actually and meaningfully "won" anything at all.

It's like holding a poll on "the best flavour of ice cream", and then forever after we all have to acknowledge that one specific flavour of ice cream is superior to the rest.

Well, I don't really have an issue with having a predetermined metric such as what was used to score a debate with. It's more objective than having a panel of judges or anything else I've heard of. I'm actually less interested in the "win" than in the metric they used... which side changed minds?

I should preface this next bit with an explicit statement that I agree with laine lowe's analysis of the performance of the actors in the debate, except Dyson. Further to laine's comments, I would add that I think most would agree that the punch of the debate was Dyson vs Peterson, with Goldberg and Fry having less impact than their partners, if only because they didn't get in the mud. That said, given that Peterson was a miserable grump with no rapport - and even his supporters agreed it 'wasn't his best performance' - then what does it say that even then his side won supporters? The debate was held in Toronto, IIRC, so I'm disinclined to say it's because the audience was disinclined to progressive ideas.

What it tells me is that Dyson's approach of 'attack, attack, then claim victim' is the wrong one. I don't think Peterson and Fry won the debate, I think Dyson lost it due to bad strategy. And recall that as grumpy as Peterson was, he wasn't the one who earned boos. Reading Youtube comments is always a dangerous game, but I found a good portion of the top, parent level comments for this video were quite revealing - about half talk about how racist Dyson is.

Cody87 wrote:

What it tells me is that Dyson's approach of 'attack, attack, then claim victim' is the wrong one. I don't think Peterson and Fry won the debate, I think Dyson lost it due to bad strategy. And recall that as grumpy as Peterson was, he wasn't the one who earned boos. Reading Youtube comments is always a dangerous game, but I found a good portion of the top, parent level comments for this video were quite revealing - about half talk about how racist Dyson is.

It's sad, but nobody likes an angry black man. Even if he is justified in being an angry black man. As for comments about Dyson being racist, it just drives me crazy that so many believe that "reverse racism" is a thing. Call it prejudice but not racism. Hell, I look at the world through a prejudiced lens because I am always on the alert to call out transgressions made by white entitled men both historically and currently.

Jordan Peterson ; The face of Incels

I have no idea what happened to the vegan challenge. I've never been a vegan and have zero intention of being one. That challenge does have the benefit of getting people eating more veg, which is a good thing, but I think Paltrow is every bit as nuts in terms of nutrition as Peterson is.

lagatta4 wrote:

He is also a pernicious health cultist: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/the-peterson-family-m... I don't give a shit if the creep kills himself, but his influence on his daughter is another matter.

FYI, she introduced the diet to him.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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This happened when she tried to eat an organic olive, and again recently when she was at a restaurant that put pepper on her steak.

“I was like, whatever, it’s just pepper,” she told me. Then she had a reaction that lasted three weeks and included joint pain, acne, and anxiety.

I have certain doubts about this, just as I have doubts about the "clear and evident benefits" of pretty much all orthorexic woo.  Claiming that humans aren't omnivores is like claiming that humans aren't viviparous.

That said, she's presumably wrong primarily because she's either a right-winger, or she inherited the dominant right-wing gene -- not because a totally artificial diet is just a stupid idea.

That said, what ever happened to babble's officially-promoted, much hyped "Vegan Challenge"?  Surely some orthorexias are better than others.

Best case scenario, she's a troubled soul with serious health issues who is having one heckuva great placebo effect (for the time being) and psychosomatic reactions. But as Michael points out, this is also a grift that she's cashing in on by offering dangerous advice on diet. Here's a well-done article on the all-beef diet:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/08/the-peterson-family-m...

As for the vegan challenge, I'm not missing it.

Timebandit wrote:

As for the vegan challenge, I'm not missing it.

As I recall, it was a real bait-and-switch. They tried to promote it as a healthy-living issue, but it was pretty clear after a while that the real agenda was animal-rights(which is NOT the same thing as environmentalism), about which there is no consensus on the left, and in fact, is a rather divisive topic in many quarters.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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But as Michael points out, this is also a grift that she's cashing in on by offering dangerous advice on diet.

Fair enough.  But it's really no more stupid than and no less stupid than the all-grapefruit diet, the nothing-but-papaya diet, the only cold raw vegetables diet or the "no animal products of any kind" diet which goes by a different name and is surprisingly well regarded.  I don't feel like her last name makes this any more shifty or ill-advised.

A vegan diet is generally more diverse than what she's proposing - beef, salt, water, nothing else. She's also promoting the idea that it's a long-term diet, as opposed to the grapefruit diet which, while still an ill-advised eating plan, was only meant to be a temporary weight-loss diet. So it's dangerous advice on two counts - excessively restrictive and recommended duration (life-long). Is she worse than Freelee the banana girl? Possibly not, but maybe. You'd have to ask a nutritionist. I think it's fair to say there's no shortage of really bad ideas out there where eating habits are involved.

The surname factors into her riding on her parent's coattails in order to profit from exceptionally bad advice, so it does imply some shiftiness. I mean, dear old dad gets famous and starts raking it in on Patreon, suddenly she's blogging and offering paid consults. At least Freelee has to do her own publicity.

Has Jordan Peterson been on some crusade to get people to clean up their living quarters?

voice of the damned wrote:

Has Jordan Peterson been on some crusade to get people to clean up their living quarters?

his central message, at least re: self help, is to start being a better person by keeping your living space tidy - which on it's face isn't problematic in any way. even as step one or step 12 or any in between. but as a self-proclaimed expert on the subject, he ought to at least practice the simple things he preaches. and his lack of credibility on as basic an issue as this bleeds into his lack of credibility on others. nevermind the lobster thing, or his general shittiness towards transgender people.

Yes, it is one of his tenets about adulthood.

Especially since Peterson could obviously afford to have another person clean his office.

Yes, he is very nasty to trans people, as well as being extremely misogynist.

Other than tests, treatment for allergies involves elimination of various foods, but also their careful reintroduction, unless it is an allergy that can be lethal. Eliminating all plant-based foods is very odd - and very constipating, no?

voice of the damned wrote:

Ah, I wasn't aware that he had discussed the importance of cleaning one's house. Thanks.

 

 

Yes, clean your room and stand up straight are two of his pieces of advice for fighting disorder in your life. Like you never heard that from your mother. But women are the dragon of chaos. 

Personally, I think most women find themselves agents of order around home but whatever. 

Fair point. Although people who do that kind of thing are usually vulnerable if not desperate for whatever reason. 

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Fair point. Although people who do that kind of thing are usually vulnerable if not desperate for whatever reason.

Also a fair point.  But the "Peterson all-beef and only beef diet" is by no means the only orthorexia competing for their attention.  I don't care if Jordan gives his daughter 80% of his earnings to promote her diet, she's outspent by PETA and ALF and others by a factor of (by my guess) about 100.

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But just suppose, Magoo, that someone, or perhaps many someones, believed your claim that their lives would be made better in every way by these magical ice cubes, and spent their last $50 to buy your secret recipe. Would you say that you had acted ethically?

That would come down to whether or not I genuinely believed that this "solid water" actually helped me.  That's how religions get around the whole "acting ethically" thing, isn't it?