Peterson, Harris, etc....

e.cantona

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Erm talking about discussing scary things?
Forgot a question mark at the end there. Haven't listened to the podcast episode yet. Just imagined it must be terrible if it's Sam Harris :)
 

Gehrman

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Forgot a question mark at the end there. Haven't listened to the podcast episode yet. Just imagined it must be terrible if it's Sam Harris :)
It's just another talk about IQ with some throw backs to the bell curve and the controversy it caused.
 

e.cantona

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It's just another talk about IQ with some throw backs to the bell curve and the controversy it caused.
Ye, it's probably not too scary :) Peter Singer is usually insightful enough. Will have a listen at some point
 

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Some of the replies made me laugh



 

OleBoiii

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Ugh, so I just watched an 8 minute clip from the recent interview between Shapiro and Peterson. Here are some of the "highlights"/things I noticed:

1. Peterson really tries to hammer home the idea that having a meaningful life without a wife/husband and kids is almost impossible. You better be a damn prodigy in your field or an extremely creative person totally committed to your craft to pull this off. But even then it's hard. This is all based on his experience, obviously.

2. A woman he knows was literally a slave and managed to escape and eventually get into an Ivy League university in the US. She apparently considers it a waste of time because the professors are too PC and it reminds her of North Korea. He's almost moved to tears by this analogy and seems almost sadder when talking about how PC the university has become then when he talks about how the poor woman had to sell her own mother to escape.

3. Why does he always get so emotional these days? I feel that he's gonna break down in tears at any moment.
 

Gehrman

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Ugh, so I just watched an 8 minute clip from the recent interview between Shapiro and Peterson. Here are some of the "highlights"/things I noticed:

1. Peterson really tries to hammer home the idea that having a meaningful life without a wife/husband and kids is almost impossible. You better be a damn prodigy in your field or an extremely creative person totally committed to your craft to pull this off. But even then it's hard. This is all based on his experience, obviously.

2. A woman he knows was literally a slave and managed to escape and eventually get into an Ivy League university in the US. She apparently considers it a waste of time because the professors are too PC and it reminds her of North Korea. He's almost moved to tears by this analogy and seems almost sadder when talking about how PC the university has become then when he talks about how the poor woman had to sell her own mother to escape.

3. Why does he always get so emotional these days? I feel that he's gonna break down in tears at any moment.
He's probably been binge watching Pinocchio during his recovery process.

I did watch the whole interview though after you commented on it.
 

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Ugh, so I just watched an 8 minute clip from the recent interview between Shapiro and Peterson. Here are some of the "highlights"/things I noticed:

1. Peterson really tries to hammer home the idea that having a meaningful life without a wife/husband and kids is almost impossible. You better be a damn prodigy in your field or an extremely creative person totally committed to your craft to pull this off. But even then it's hard. This is all based on his experience, obviously.

2. A woman he knows was literally a slave and managed to escape and eventually get into an Ivy League university in the US. She apparently considers it a waste of time because the professors are too PC and it reminds her of North Korea. He's almost moved to tears by this analogy and seems almost sadder when talking about how PC the university has become then when he talks about how the poor woman had to sell her own mother to escape.

3. Why does he always get so emotional these days? I feel that he's gonna break down in tears at any moment.
Because he has serious addiction/mental health issues. Which is ironic considering he must surely have an extremely tidy room.
 

shamans

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Ugh, so I just watched an 8 minute clip from the recent interview between Shapiro and Peterson. Here are some of the "highlights"/things I noticed:

1. Peterson really tries to hammer home the idea that having a meaningful life without a wife/husband and kids is almost impossible. You better be a damn prodigy in your field or an extremely creative person totally committed to your craft to pull this off. But even then it's hard. This is all based on his experience, obviously.

2. A woman he knows was literally a slave and managed to escape and eventually get into an Ivy League university in the US. She apparently considers it a waste of time because the professors are too PC and it reminds her of North Korea. He's almost moved to tears by this analogy and seems almost sadder when talking about how PC the university has become then when he talks about how the poor woman had to sell her own mother to escape.

3. Why does he always get so emotional these days? I feel that he's gonna break down in tears at any moment.
My honest take is that Peterson has a really fragile mental state. He likes to blame the world and its issues. Bit of a lost soul. In all honesty, if you look at his 12 rules just by chapter titles its not even bad advice. What those "12 rules" can do for you though, or what he claims, is sad.

When I see Peterson I see someone really sad and depressed. Someone who doesn't understand how to better his situation and the world's. I think he needs to find a "reason" for things to be the way they are and he's found his spot in cancel culture/anti pc etc etc.

Then come his fans. The average person may listen to Peterson once. You'll have someone who calls him a clown and another who says "yeah this guy talked some right things" but then move on with their lives. Then you got the other fan. The saddest type of fan. The pathetic member of society who needs to find a reason for their lack of social success and an avenue to channel out the pent up aggression they have. They buy his books, listen to his podcasts and just live a life as an embodiment of Jordan Peterson.
 

hobbers

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Good watch that.

Helped that it was Fry talking for like 70% of the time. Man does that guy know a lot about a lot.
 

e.cantona

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Haven't listened yet, but Lex Fridman's podcast is usually very good. Also on Spotify, etc.
 

e.cantona

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Haven't listened yet, but Lex Fridman's podcast is usually very good. Also on Spotify, etc.
Because I posted the link.. Nothing new from Sam Harris, but great intro to him if you're new to SH. Little to nothing on religion, more on meaning, in general. Like meditation. Couple of quotes, "We're just climbing out of the darkness in terms of our understanding of what the hell is going on", "Creating hell and populating it with minds that can suffer, thats bad". Also, not really, but SH kinda said he belive the UFO stuff going on is very likely for real. Overall good podcast, three hours minus whatever speed you're on.
 

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I didn't know Lawrence Krauss was caught up in all that, that's a shame. His talk (and then book) about "something from nothing" is one of my favourites. Sam Harris I gave up a long time ago, though.

PZ Myers called it years ago too.

The New Atheism is dead. Long live atheism.

I've been godless since I was a teenager, and have been vocal about it, too. Richard Dawkins was a life-long atheist, too, and he sat on the idea for The God Delusion for years, his agent telling him the time wasn’t right. Something changed in the early years of the 21st century, though, and rather abruptly, atheism became cool. All of us long-term atheists suddenly had growing audiences; we were mentioned in pop culture; our enemies became even more shrill; and we had this monicker thrust upon us, the “New Atheists”, against our protests, because we were all aware that there was nothing new about it. Maybe we were more aggressive, or maybe suddenly people were listening to us, but really, it was the same old atheism with a fancy artisan label.

And it took off. “The Four Horsemen” — weirdly inappropriate as it was (which one’s Death, which is Pestilence?), as bizarre as it was for four guys to basically declare themselves the inspirational leadership of an intellectual movement, it was a phenomenal PR move. Atheism became associated in the public eye with New Atheism and these four, turning into a vanity project, which was the worst thing that could happen to us all. Now all the flaws in those individuals transferred to how the public saw atheism.

There was the Philosopher, who has probably aged the best by staying out of the public eye to a large degree, and focusing on academic endeavors and ideas like the Clergy Project. If only the others had kept their ego as free of the atheism movement as he has.

There was the Scientist, who contributed so much clarity to atheism, but is now even more strongly associated with deplorably regressive ideas about feminism, and also leapt happily on the anti-Islam bandwagon fired up by his fellow Horsemen. Unfortunately, part of the growth of 21st century atheism was fueled by the burning of the Twin Towers, and we got sidetracked into damning Islam rather than promoting secularism as worthy in itself.

There was the Eloquent Polemicist, the guy with the confident turn of phrase, the certainty buoyed up with wit, who was on board specifically to chant for the neocon agenda, who wanted war, war, war with a third of the world. He was a brilliant speaker and writer, but he was also one of those responsible for turning atheism towards the darkness of ethnic hatred and misogyny. He had help, though…

There was the Dilettante, Mr Hollywood, the fellow who won over a horde of pre-Alt-Right fan boys by cloaking himself in the mantle of [motivated] Reason and doing his best to make racism palatable by saying it all in a mind-numbing emotionless drone. Read the summary. It’s not pretty.

This is how the New Atheism was shaped, by this handful of high profile proponents. I regarded myself as a New Atheist, too, for the longest time (heck, I’m even cited in The God Delusion, making me pretty damned New Athey, I would think), although for the past few years I’ve mainly been criticizing the direction it’s been taking. Too much blithe sexism, too much flirting with racism, far too much association with regressive conservatism, way way too much fecking libertarianism. The captains of the ship have been steering it into catastrophe while being too busy polishing their uniforms.

Symptomatic of the problems is the offense to reason du jour. We’re living in the age of Trump, when evangelical wankers rule the senate and the Supreme Court is being stocked with Christian conservatives. Planned Parenthood clinics are being shut down all across the country. Our president panders to the Evangelical Right by trying to ban transgender people from the military, and flirts with the war hawks by rattling sabers at Iran and North Korea. There are a million crimes that a movement dedicated to secularism, reason, and Enlightenment values ought to be driven to oppose, but no…what we’re supposed to be concerned about is that Richard Dawkins’ Free Speech was curtailed by a radio station deciding they didn’t want to host one of his talks.

Oh, please. If only we could apply some of that outrage to the case of every woman denied the right to control her own body because Bible-thumping fetus-worshippers hate autonomy. That would be an atheist movement worth following (I should mention that the FFRF, at least, does take a clear position on that).

So…this article by Phil Torres in Salon on the New Atheists. I have to say that Salon has a poor record on writing about atheism — they’ve published some awful crap, and seem to lack any editors competent to evaluate articles on religion or atheism — so I read it with some trepidation. But worse, the article turns out to be dead-on. Don’t you just hate it when someone effectively criticizes something you have been a part of? I’m actually going to have to recommend it, because it does summarize well all the problems with the New Atheism. I agree with it.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news.

That version of atheism that is all neocon, libertarian, anti-feminist, and smug cult of personality crap? It has conveniently lumped itself together under the label of “New Atheism”. Reject it. Repudiate it. Scorn it as being soooo 2005.

I say this as a former proud New Atheist, but New Atheist no more.

But still an atheist. Man, that religion junk is so inane that I’m not leaping into its arms because I refuse to accept the baggage of the New Atheism — but you can still be a proud Social Justice Atheist, or SJA, without accepting any fragment of superstition and god-belief.
Edit: Heh, go figure. In that blog post from 2017 PZ Myers links to another Salon article by the same author, on the same topic.
 
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Interesting read. Never heard of PZ Meyers before. Something that remains unsaid in both the pieces is the role of tech in enabling these idiots. So much of islamophobia of the last two decades has been aided, abetted, and proliferated by online platforms, media outlets, and algorithms pushing these guys as being on the side of science. When in reality it was just plain islamophobia.
 

hobbers

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Decent irony that someone so enthusiastically cheered on people as they aggressively debunked religious dogma, but then lose their shit when some of those same people dare to question non-religious dogma.
 

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Interesting read. Never heard of PZ Meyers before. Something that remains unsaid in both the pieces is the role of tech in enabling these idiots. So much of islamophobia of the last two decades has been aided, abetted, and proliferated by online platforms, media outlets, and algorithms pushing these guys as being on the side of science. When in reality it was just plain islamophobia.
He was one of the early and vocal "new atheists", through his blog Pharyngula (ostensibly about biology and other science, but also other stuff). His "thing" was mostly Creationism/Intelligent Design, which makes sense since he's a biologist. He's had some spats with others in the atheist/sceptic sphere, largely over the issues he's identifying in that blog post.

Decent irony that someone so enthusiastically cheered on people as they aggressively debunked religious dogma, but then lose their shit when some of those same people dare to question non-religious dogma.
I feel like this is missing the point by rather a lot.
 

hobbers

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I feel like this is missing the point by rather a lot
The main point I take is that the author is someone clearly obsessed with projecting his own ideological purity, as well as measuring it in other people.

While he implied that he took a lot of glee in the dismantling of other people's belief systems, he's predictably oblivious to his own dogmatic beliefs and behaviour, and is now very angry at a few well-known sceptics, empiricists and scientists for behaving too much like sceptics, empiricists and scientists.
 

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There's uncharitable readings, and then there's that.

And calling what Dawkins, Harris and others are doing "behaving like sceptics, empiricists and scientists" is absurd. They've obviously taken it much further than that.
 

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I simply cannot see Dawkins as far right despite being somewhat of a arrogant cnut. I've read this article way before the 5th of june 2021 though, so I don't know if it was just refreshed. It's worth noting that Harris was one of most vocal in getting Trump banned from Twitter during the capitol stuff.
 
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The main point I take is that the author is someone clearly obsessed with projecting his own ideological purity, as well as measuring it in other people.

While he implied that he took a lot of glee in the dismantling of other people's belief systems, he's predictably oblivious to his own dogmatic beliefs and behaviour, and is now very angry at a few well-known sceptics, empiricists and scientists for behaving too much like sceptics, empiricists and scientists.
The article is too broad imo. He makes a few good points but the piece generally reads like a hit job by an author obsessed with attempting to make a name for himself by discrediting people he disagrees with. I clicked on his name and was immediately met with several more articles going after the likes of Harris and Pinker. He would've been better off attacking an idea that one of them is famous for and focusing on why its a bad idea instead clutching at straws by going after a platoon of people who themselves, probably don't agree with one another on a range of issues.
 
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hobbers

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There's uncharitable readings, and then there's that.

And calling what Dawkins, Harris and others are doing "behaving like sceptics, empiricists and scientists" is absurd. They've obviously taken it much further than that.
I don't tend to give out charitable readings to mendacious and bigoted hit pieces.

Dawkins is a scientist and Harris is whatever he is, a popular author I guess. They haven't taken anything further than that, and the hit piece fails to make that case as well. Don't know much about the others mentioned. Seems like he's lazily lumped a load of people under the banner of 'New Atheism' when most of them probably have a very broad range of views. What they apparently all have in common is that they outed themselves as alt-right white supremacists when they dared turn their reason and evidence-driven scepticism towards a belief system that the author holds as sacrosanct. How unexpected.

It's tedious and puerile to say that if someone like Dawkins gives a critique of political correctness, 'wokeism' etc it must be because he's aligned himself with the alt-right, and not because wokeism might have quite a few things in common with the anti-scientific religious belief systems he's devoted decades of his life to combating.

It's a shame that these morally aggrandising armchair philosophers like Torres never seem to mix much with actual scientists. Would rock his world if he realised how many of them would fail his ideological purity test. His twitter stock would skyrocket from outing them all.
 
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Gehrman

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You kind of have to wonder that if you describe Harris and Dawkins as far-right, what you would then call the actual far-right of the past and present. For me it seems in some instances that far-right becomes a smear who certain people who challenges certain people's on political and religous orthodoxy.
 

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You kind of have to wonder that if you describe Harris and Dawkins as far-right, what you would then call the actual far-right of the past and present. For me it seems in some instances that far-right becomes a smear who certain people who challenges certain people's on political and religous orthodoxy.
Did you read the article? He's not "describing" them as far-right, he's pointing out that many of them are hanging out with and collaborating with far-right figures which he backs up with evidence. Also shows pictures of people like Pinker having a grand old time with Dershowitz and Jeffrey Epstein which places in the company of a very shady crowd.

Incidentally, Pinker has long cultivated a strange fan base. I knew a girl that was a total groupie of his when she was at Harvard and I got the impression he would get down with certain students on a regular basis.