Intellectual Dark Web

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jennypenny
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Intellectual Dark Web

Post by jennypenny »

I'm not sure what everyone's thoughts are on the IDW. I like some more than others, but all are refreshing in their refusal to be herded.

This Rebel Wisdom video is pretty good. I particularly like the discussion with Eric Weinstein towards the beginning where he argues that we should tolerate the eccentricity of people who have something to contribute intellectually. It reminded me of the Jordan Peterson discussion where some people didn't like his diet advice so ignored his other musings.

@11:45 There's a quote from Eric Weinstein (my favorite in the IDW) " ... I think it's absolutely imperative that we realize that as a society, we are standing on the shoulders not only of giants but of jerks." The eccentrics/jerks help move us forward and we shouldn't be so quick to write them off because of facets we don't like about them.

I've read a lot about Ludwig Wittgenstein recently and wondered if a side effect of being so intelligent -- and in an innovative way -- is having your mind wander down some inappropriate paths in addition to the productive ones. Maybe having only palatable ideas (no matter how good) shows the limits of one's intelligence and not its inherent genius?


OT side note: Do we need a category for thinking/intelligence/models/frameworks/etc? It feels lazy to dump this topic in Miscellaneous.

The Old Man
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by The Old Man »

jennypenny wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 12:59 pm
OT side note: Do we need a category for thinking/intelligence/models/frameworks/etc? It feels lazy to dump this topic in Miscellaneous.
"Politics" sounds more appropriate. The "Intellectual Dark Web" is political in nature and a reaction against the SJW nonsense.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

jennypenny wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 12:59 pm
eccentrics/jerks help move us forward
.....
Ludwig Wittgenstein
daylen wrote:
Fri Jun 22, 2018 3:10 pm
AGREEABLENESS 3
Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:53 pm
Scene from ‘An Enemy of the People’
By Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)


https://www.bartleby.com/380/prose/911.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

@jennypenny’s video

7m20s “I realized that society was going to be lying about everything at all times. We have entered a period where we cannot trust our experts.....we have got 2 generations of institutional experts that are corrupted.”

If we cannot be honest somewhere, we have nothing.

@8m52 “There’s 2 games here, there’s trying to get the best deck chairs on the Titanic and there’s trying to save the ship.”

@10m13s “High variance human activity moves the dial in human history.”

See Taleb- antifragiliy
See Christopher Cole- Long Volatility, long convexity
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10423
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, paraphrasing from memory “They would trade a cartload of beautiful possibilities for a handful of certainties to lie down on....and die.”
See Dr. Fisker’s Renaissance Man, unpleasant and you cannot take him to a party

@17m0s
We need to clean house of people who are lying about very obvious things

@19m35s
The consensus is wrong!
See Ibsen’s Dr. Stockmann ( The minority is always right!)
Orwell’s 1984 (2+2=5)

@22m0s
You should not be intimidated or cowed by mandarins in positions of power, groupthink has taken over!

@25m30s
“We pretend journalism is a search for truth which I find hysterically funny.”

KAYFABE
Noun: (in professional wrestling) the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic

@28m30
All kinds of fakery, E Weinstein’s coinage of KAYFABRICATION
“Real activities that are dangerous and/or boring tend to get sanitized by the participants so they can be present an as/if product to those outside the structure so the participants themselves do not get hurt.”

See Taleb, no skin the game, antifragility at others expense, your “risk-free high-yield bank account, Social Security or Medicare benefit that you plan to semi-ERE with” :lol:

@29m5s
Scripted series of pretend bouts, he mentions war, finance, media, journalism.... and later Democrat/Republican fake binary option!!!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B2KVORRKsxE

@29m45s
WE ARE DRIVING UP THE COST OF REAL INTEGRITY

@37m50s
“Leftcarthyism”

@38m45s
“We cannot wish ourselves into a beautiful future by pretending the world is different than it actually is..... this would be offensive to an intelligent five year old.”

@42m10s
“Labor has economic issues...identity is cheaper than labor....this is a search for the cheapest constituency.”

Those who cater to and fool the lowest common denominator!

Scintillating! Invigorating! Thank you jennypenny!

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Kriegsspiel »

Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:53 pm
7m20s “I realized that society was going to be lying about everything at all times. . . We have entered a period where we cannot trust our experts.....we have got 2 generations of institutional experts that are corrupted...”
This article, from 2016, seems pretty damning.

But to finish the quote:

"... and that we cannot wake up from this crazy fever dream that we're all in, because we can't figure out who to trust. The doctors are compromised, the professors are compromised, the journalists are compromised, the politicians are compromised. About the only people who are not compromised are the people with an independent source of sustenance."

Score another one for financial independence.

I recently started on The Bell Curve, and I was a bit surprised to find out that the currently trendy practice of trying to get people fired from their jobs and shamed for scholarly wrongthink (in that case, for arguing for heritability of intelligence) has been going on in the same form since the 1960s. Cue the current situation with James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA, mentioned by Eric Weinstein in the video) on the same subject. This article is emblematic of the whole thing. In the 9th paragraph he explains that the subject makes him feel bad. Everyone who talks about anything but feelings is "off the mark." And I think that's what's at the core of the IDW: hatefacts. Things we're learning that make people feel bad. It's kind of like intellectual Luddism.

15:30 He also gives the example of someone on the verge of curing cancer making a bad joke that fragile people try to get them fired over because it made them feel bad. I suspect he's referring to Richard Ned Lebow, an award winning intellectual, who made a joke in an elevator that a feminist thought was offensive and filed an official complaint over. As jennypenny ("I wonder if a side effect...") and Eric Weinstein intimated, really smart people, around the genius level of intelligence, probably exhibit some less agreeable auto tendencies. So if they can be fired from their job or muzzled for their innate disagreeableness, we lose out on their intellectual contributions. He comes back to this thought at about 32 minutes in, where he talks about someone being able to hold their own beliefs in the face of opposition.

Peter Thiel has a concept where he says to figure out the one thing you think is true that everyone else thinks is false (or vice versa), and think about what business could be done with that knowledge. So in effect, taking what Weinstein was saying about being the only person in the crowd to disagree with the popular sentiment, but with Machiavellian sensibilities. So, not telling the Emperor he's not wearing any clothes, but maybe trying to sell him a space heater. I'm waiting for a women's college basketball coach to put Thiel's concept into practice, and recruit teams full of "transgendered" 6 foot 7, 230 pound athletes and win every championship from here on :lol:

Thiel made an observation back in the 90s that is relevant to quotes Mister Imperceptible pulled out of the video: "The radicals of the 60s got their PhDs in the 70s and were associate professors in the 80s and they have tenure in the 90s and are going to be with us for a long, long time."

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jennypenny
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by jennypenny »

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Mon Feb 04, 2019 10:49 am
Score another one for financial independence.
FI used to be called 'independent means' and I like that term better. It's probably closer to ERE principles than FIRE. And as you said, independent means allow for independent thought.


I wouldn't necessarily classify the IDW as solely a reaction to SJW culture. There are many in the group who are quite critical of right-leaning culture as well. It's just that most of them are in academia so their more public battles are in that arena. Twice this week I've read articles referring to Sam Harris as 'alt-right', which is downright hilarious, but anyone seen as not being far enough left is painted as far right (and vice versa). The IDW is an attempt to establish a beachhead in the center.

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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by jacob »

I'm probably gonna regret posting this, but ...

The IDW seems like it's composed of two (three if we're counting the facilitators) groups of people who would otherwise have nothing in common. I mean what does Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Michael Cernovich have in common? Anyway ...

The first are former professors who randomly(?) ran into some controversy and decided to run with it. Some have since capitalized greatly on it with the aid of various comedians and talk show hosts. They are now enjoying way more attention (and money) on their youtube channels than they ever were or would when professoring at the U. Youtube is not exactly dark or at least not as dark as a lecture hall, but I understand the IDW is ironically and deliberately named to generate establishment attention.

The second are various political fringe opinionators who specialize in controversy and who are eager to be taken [intellectually] seriously by associating themselves with the aforementioned. Likely they do not see the irony.

The controversial topics seem to be the same that has plagued this forum and the rest of the world over the past few years: political correctness, [third-wave] feminism SJW stuff, and anything related to anything Trump. Also ethno-religious tribalism like Christianity vs Islam which we've fortunately managed to escape on the forum so far. In short, identity politics and its counterreaction which is also a form of identity politics. Us vs Them stuff. Stuff that gives me a headache.

However, working intellectually restricted to the short-list of being against what the establishment considers bad manners hardly makes for a complete/coherent intellectual framework. We're not talking Nietzsche upending the world here, although Kriegsspiel's basketball idea is nearing Sokal level. These aren't deep questions about the underpinnings of thought or reality as much as they are part of the culture wars. A simple foundation of "being against" is a non-starter as far as philosophy goes.

Otherwise, this is just political soldiering or more precisely high-brow weapons manufacturing (cf. the low-brow meme variety) for the culture wars. Stoking the controversies and supplying the weapons. It's providing smart-sounding come-backs for when SWJs and lefties make their points in smart-sounding ways based on what they learned in gender studies et al. In terms of where I would classify it, I see it as "alternative gender studies et al" and about as (ir)relevant in the grand scheme of things (meaning outside college), unless of course you're really into this stuff (we have some examples).

I have not read any Wittgenstein, but genius is knowing which rules to break. In order to do that one has to know the rules and find better rules to replace the broken ones. Random/unruly wandering/rule breaking is not a sufficient nor a required indicator of intelligence. It can just as easily indicate helplessness and frustration.

Also see the thread on nonconformity.

TL;DR - What The Old Man said. The IDW is basically a reactive political profit-engine in the form of a loose "vlogging" network of influencers. Alternatively, a provider of popular and highly profitable online courses in alternative gender studies.

Campitor
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Campitor »

Eric Weinstein, who takes up 40 minutes of the 44 minute video, actually states there is no "IDW". Weinstein states that it can't be "dark" when most of the conversations are being streamed and published on very accessible mediums such as YouTube and Podcasts.

He would prefer to escape notoriety but he feels there is a real danger to intellectual and practical progress from the "leftcarthyism" being promulgated by the SJW crowd. This threat has pressured him into speaking publicly which is something he would really like to avoid. Weinstein's example: What if we have a scientist on the brink of discovering a cure for cancer who misspeaks or deliberately holds an unpopular or social reprehensible view - should he be drummed out of his job by SJW-ism and humanity to forego the cure to cancer because of his views? He finds that situation crazy hence his compulsion to speak now while the iron is hot.
Last edited by Campitor on Mon Feb 04, 2019 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

IlliniDave
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by IlliniDave »

I sort of like the IDW. Peterson has talked about a facet of freedom is the freedom to be "wrong" and explore paths of thought/discussions/ideas that might be labeled "inappropriate" without getting your head handed to you, so not entirely different from the idea that Weinstein expresses.

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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by jacob »

@Campitor - One extreme example of that is Fritz Haber who received the Nobel prize for chemically fixing nitrogen thus breaking man's reliance on sustainable agricultural practices. Without that process (Haber-Bosch... Bosch was the one who figured out how to run it at industrial scale), 3/5 of the world's humans would not be able to feed themselves today. However, Haber was also very active in development and distribution of chemical warfare agents during WWI. When his wife (also a chemist) found out, she killed herself. He was later involved in the research of Zyklon A that later lead to the development of Zyklon B. He escaped Nazi Germany in 1933 and worked briefly at Cambridge (see Rutherford comment below) before dying enroute to an directorship appointment at the Sieff Research Institute in Palestine (before it became Israel).

Because of being involved in both the best and worst of chemistry, his relations to colleagues was a mixed affair. Some would work with him. Others refused. For someone having invented something as major as the Haber process, there's very little in terms of statues, commemorations, or building-names. However, while the man is largely forgotten, his research is not.

As a thought experiment, imagine if he had developed Zyklon A first ... and then the Haber process later.

Also keep in mind that scientific progress is very rarely characterized by a lone hero working alone to develop a completely novel idea that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for their personal effort. Most often several people are working individually on the same thing with credit going exclusively to the first one to publish. For example, if Einstein's special theory of relativity hadn't been discovered by Einstein in 1905, it would probably have been discovered by Poincare in 1907 and it would have been Poincare's theory of relativity. Regardless, there would have been a known theory of relativity before WWI. In modern science, most work is teams working together. I suppose principles are for sale but in terms of the aggregate value, while brilliance counts positive, socially reprehensible views or works would certainly count negative. Rutherford refused to shake hands with Haber. I would too. Being brilliant is not an infinite license to be a jerk.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

I think characterizing IDW as a reactive profit engine is reductionist. If they have profited, that does not reduce what merits they have. That would be like saying the ERE book does not have merit because Dr. Fisker collects royalties, and that ERE is a faux-environmentally conscious virtue-signaling profit engine.
Mister Imperceptible wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 9:27 am
I honestly hope JLF gets rich AF. I see no problem whatsoever with becoming wealthy by disseminating useful knowledge. There are many people out there getting wealthy by disseminating garbage. And I am sure JLF will use any gained wealth more prudently/responsibly/ethically than the vast majority of others.
I think this comes down to personal experience. It is very easy to say that Cultural Marxism is a phantom bugaboo until you are on the receiving end of an HR complaint and false sexual harassment accusation because “hey, it’s open season on white guys, say whatever you want and they cannot fight back.” Where I roam in the halls of Corporate America, I do not hear anybody touting the inferiority of minorities and women but I do hear a good deal about the white patriarchy oppressing us all. I can’t (and wouldn’t want to, anyway) make fun of a black person’s dreads, but it is perfectly acceptable for my boss to relentlessly make fun of my “generic white guy comb-over haircut” and repeatedly tell me that I only have what I have because of my white privilege (as if my hard work had nothing to do with it). And I know that white men on the receiving end of this who do not succumb to the pathetic self-loathing often, as Peterson explains, conclude “If you want to play the identity game, I will play, and I will play to win,” and before you know it, they are parroting the alt-right. The IDW stands aloof between extremes of dark ignorance with a torch saying “There is light here in the middle” and thank goodness for that.

Regarding conformity/nonconformity and ants, I do not see biomass as success, anymore than I see implementing virtual reality on a widescale to be success. No statistical outliers moving the needle on human history will be emerging from a Matrix-like test tube. That sounds like death to me. An evolutionary dead end. But compared to Stalinesque genocide, it “sounds nicer.”

I present (what used to be?) someone’s favorite quote:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert Heinlein

I know just from studying economics and investing in just the past year, there is a great deal of deceit, of “kayfabrication” on the part of “experts” in that field. I am certain that similar lies proliferate in other fields. This does not mean I am prepared to select my own invented facts. It just means I have a healthy skepticism that, across society, is altogether lacking. It would seem to me that the IDW could help foster and cultivate that healthy skepticism and serious spirit of inquiry.

If we are not honest, we have nothing.

And I hope there is a difference between offputting jokes on the one hand, and developing and unleashing chlorine gas on the other. I do not think anyone is advocating infinite license to be a jerk. I think people are saying that we should resist the group of people that are waiting for their feelings to be hurt and then launch a career-destroying character assassination.

The fact that Dr. Fisker does not ban those who disagree with him on individual matters is a testament to his character and honesty, and again I thank him. He is probably, for that reason.....a part of the IDW.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Kriegsspiel »

That bit I said about Peter Thiel was only tangentially related to the IDW discussion. I see the IDW concept more about ensuring knowledge isn't suppressed.

Clarice
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Clarice »

independent means allow for independent thought.
Some random thoughts on the correlation between independent means and independent thoughts... Being free to practice independent thought and free speech is one of the more noble motives to reach independent means. However, the fact that you are allowed to keep your independent means and that your job is the only thing that the government/corporation can take from you is evidence of a relatively free society. Under unfavorable circumstances, this society has a LONG way down. Independent thought was practiced throughout history in much less favorable times, but it took special people. People who are married and have kids are surrounded by potential hostages. Independent thought required people with no potential hostages. Giordano Bruno was a monk. Gregor Mendel was a monk. Theirs was the only life they risked. If this society goes down we will see who the true heroes are.

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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by daylen »

It seems to me that expressing the process by which I organize and prioritize data gives others a less distorted view of what I am trying to say. I have found more utility in understanding how others think as opposed to the conclusions they arrive at. I am not so sure there are any rules that everyone can agree on. There may be different domains with explicit and implicit rule sets, and I tend to follow explicit rules. More implicit rules are harder for me to understand, because I tend to sub-consciously classify this set as "noise". I tend to narrow my perception of reality to a domain using constraining methods and think about the possible actions I can take in that domain given the explicit rule set(*). Sometimes I will borrow rules from several domains and construct my own rule set to play in. It is hard for me to become motivated by outcomes or faith in how my actions will one day change things for the "better". Good and bad are too challenging for me to simulate on a global scale. I can imagine different realities where selection tends to happen on different levels or where the rule-sets in specific domains change, but these perceptions do not help me choose one reality over another.

I do not have much opinion on the "intellectual dark web". Trying to classify the whole seems useless to me. I have sampled various conversations associated with it, and I have found some interesting signals surrounded by some noise.

Seems that all humans have limited attention and must make a distinction between the signal and the noise. From a subjective standpoint, the noise appears random since no patterns have been discovered yet (due to not looking for any). A human can choose to analyze the noise for these patterns or they can label it with "disgust" and avoid it like the plague. Classifying information, people, things, or systems as disgusting can be advantageous for survival sometimes. I think everyone tends to avoid certain things even if this is unconscious.

Random searching within a well-bounded domain can lead to new thought patterns (play) which may lead to new ways of doing things. In the serious perception of reality, the mind tends to set rules and be conservative about how it progresses these rules (by being sure to replace them with "better" ones). I am not entirely convinced that all rules are necessary in every domain, and I suppose this is how I justify the potential for play to be useful. Expanding the possibilities for how I communicate on a network of computational devices and/or how I interact with books inside my own home both seem fairly harmless relative to the whole of society and the universe itself. I never try to be "rude" or "arrogant", but I am willing to be perceived this way in exchange for putting my opinions out there for others to examine/criticize/expand.

Another thought that comes to mind is how the "agreeableness" measure is dependent on degree of socialization. I do not constantly express disagreement with my friends and family; much of the time I just choose not to say anything at all and do things that they have explicitly classified as good in the domains we interact in. I think about how this should be balanced often and it seems to depend on the domain of operation. This is another thing that trips me up when trying to simulate any universal morality or measure of existence.

(*) This has an interesting analogy in linear algebra where a basis can span a space. A basis is a minimal set of independent dimensions (measured by multiplies of some unit) that can construct anything in the space.

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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by daylen »

Another related thought: Rule-sets that seem most "real" are the ones that I experience in every reference frame (also what I have been calling domain). The most noticeable constraints on my consciousness are beyond language. The way I experience time, space, memory, and sensation is more persistent than any interpretation of symbols. This domain of experience influences my personal logic or how I validate different representations of it, therefore the "random searching" for various symbolic representations of reality are actually far from random. System boundaries, parts/wholes, signals/noise, measurement (from binary classification to projection onto the set of integers or real numbers), couplings, growth/decay, emergence, and death appear to be names for the experiences that I encounter most frequently.

IlliniDave
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by IlliniDave »

I never got the idea that the IDW claimed to be plowing virgin intellectual ground. It's niche is long-form, open conversation, often on topics for which discussion is verboten. It's core members are guys who by any pre-2010 standard lean left of center, some quite a ways, who dared to have those conversations in the open (Weinstein objected to pretty blatant "reverse racism" on his campus, Harris wouldn't back off the overlap of religion and terrorism, Peterson spoke out against illiberal far-left ideology in Canada, Rubin left the Young Turks, etc.). It's both comical and a little scary they get labeled "alt-right" for not blindly going along with the jet sweep left around traditional mainstream liberalism that is fashionable at the moment. From my perspective (being a tad on the aged side) they are generally espousing the types of positions/rationale that were commonplace in my coming of age years (although specific topics tend to be more current). And when you get them together they have a tendency to talk about the parallels in their recent experience. I've enjoyed some of the conversations because they remind me it is still possible that I am among the sane. That people voluntarily support them financially, well, that's the American/Canadian way. There are options for those who disapprove--they can support whoever they want, it's not like tax dollars are funding these guys. If anybody cares, I have not contributed to any of them aside from purchasing Peterson's book, which I bought so I could read, not to support Peterson.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

I think from reading some of this thread and also a lot of the Jordan Peterson thread, there seems to be contempt at the amount of attention these folks are being given. I myself cringe when Peterson says stuff like dinosaurs were around when pre-historic humans walked the earth, and other things mentioned in the rational wiki that Dr. Fisker posted. He seems to sometimes want to say things just to antagonize the far left, and probably because he felt those people were a little too full of themselves. (I know because I have been guilty of doing the same thing. Sometimes I cannot resist the urge to troll :twisted: ) Peterson pondered as a young man the writings of Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky and the death of God and made it his life’s work to study these problems and counsel people struggling with similar psychological problems. In our secular world, he is sort of like a priest, where the real priests of the old religions are no longer taken seriously. Because even if you get a bunch of people who do not believe in God, you still have psychological distress and spiritual yearnings. He sees the problem with where the postmodern academics have taken the humanities and he spoke up about it, and it launched him to fame. And now he’s being asked a bunch of questions on topics about which he is not the most informed, and giving his opinions, and he is being battered for not knowing the answer to everything. Perhaps all the money from book sales and attention from the media has caused some ego inflation and he spouts off more than he should. But when presented with some data that conflicts with what he said previously, he seems willing to say “I was wrong” and that’s cool.

I understand some people would prefer only to talk about how to make laundry detergent from scratch, and how to optimize their portfolio to get the best risk-adjusted returns to enjoy retirement, the fact is that retirement must be enjoyed in a society with other people. Unless you go off to Alaska Animal-style, and even he would admit the necessity of human relations. It is entirely possible for the ideas of academics in the humanities to drive us off a cliff, just as it is possible for ideas of academics in economics working in central banks to drive us off a cliff. We are not ahistorical beings. We are here because of what has been done before us, and what we do now affects what is to come. Ideas matter. Life is lived beyond an Excel spreadsheet.

If anyone is salty at how much money Peterson is making from his publicity, here is someone who made millions of dollars saying “Gucci Gang” over and over again:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4LfJnj66HVQ

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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

It seems pretty obvious to me. Men and women are different. Men are more Disagreeable than women, especially old men*. So, that is why the men I date also have to be more Industrious than me, and pick up the tab for the Thai food if they desire the pleasure of my Agreeable** company.

*Facets also vary somewhat with ethnicity. Asian women being more Disagreeable than those of European heritage, which might explain why Asian women are preferred by men of every ethnicity except Asian men according to OkayCupid.

**I actually test pretty damn Disagreeable for a female, but I am very Warm and Open***, and also very well able to apply my Intellect to the task of faking the other facets of Agreeable, if there is a free Thai dinner in the offing.

***There are some indications**** that those exposed to high levels of testosterone in the womb lack the ability to differentiate between the multi-facets inherent in Agreeable vs. the uni-facet of Warm combined with Open.

****Anecdotal and/or First Principled.

ZAFCorrection
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by ZAFCorrection »

@MI

I have no problem with the money or attention these guys get. I just use it as a useful heuristic to conclude they are probably not throwing out any truly unique stuff. If they were, the whole public's (including left and right) reaction would be indifference or disdain.

Note that one time when Jordan Peterson had something nuanced to say about Brett Kavanaugh. All the deep thinkers got super upset.

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: Intellectual Dark Web

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

Perhaps judging my reaction to the video that jennypenny posted, I haven’t been following the IDW all that closely. I am not even aware what Peterson had to say about Brett Kavanaugh.

I have to echo what iDave and jennypenny said above, it’s not about saying unique and groundbreaking stuff, it’s about reestablishing arenas of sane discourse. I know Dr. Fisker hates it, but merely by being tolerant, these forums are part of that beachhead. Judging by how many people admitted in the Free Speech thread that they appreciate the ERE forums because they have been banned from everywhere else for saying very reasonable things, our “leaders” elsewhere have failed us. E Weinstein saying he would rather do his work in private is not unlike Dr. Fisker bemoaning that this stuff has “plagued the forums”....the reasonable people are being forced to speak out reasonably or moderate over reasonable discourse by default, because our traditional institutions (colleges/media) have utterly failed.

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