Jordan Peterson

[jacob]

@7wb5 - What I take issue with is what David Flemming called "the Devil's voice" but I just call "the joke defense". I generally trigger on this.

It happens when an operator said something outrageous which pushes the limits of the Overton window. If they don't get called on it, they just moved the Overton window a bit. If they do get called on it, they claim "it was just a joke". Rinse and repeat.

The problem is when operators retain the serious/joke card as an option depending on what the reaction is. This is quite different from what SNL does. Given Poe's law, it's best to 1) stay on track wrt serious/joking throughout a given argument (no optionality!); and 2) consider the audience.

I think "awareness of the audience" (online and offline) is part of growing up so to speak. I do realize that "troubled younglings" struggle with that as they are in the process of learning how to deal/live with others beyond the unconditional love of their own parents. I realize that social media is changing so fast that old rules no longer apply and that new rules are not adopted equally fast everywhere. Why I keep hammering on the netiquette rules.

It seems rather inescapable that the overall behavior or reputation of the followers do reflect back on the leader whether the leader wants it or not. I think that is the problem in this [publishing] case.

[Mister Imperceptible]

Well Dr. Fisker, I think being on the wrong end of a mob witch hunt leads to one of two things. Either you can submit to the mob, or you defy the mob. Defying the mob without being antagonistic is not always easy to do, when the mob is not playing by the same rules of conduct and there is no low too low for them to go to.

For those who have not experienced it, try being at the wrong end of a mob, and maintain your composure perfectly and forever, without getting angry and defiant when the low blows start coming in. And then when you get angry and defiant, the fact you were angry and defiant gets used against you.

Remember this thread rebooted with an inquiry as to whether or not Peterson was dead, and then once it was realized he was not, in came the vitriol and hyperventilation.

The contempt I mentioned upthread is the contempt I have for the mob.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

Okay, I think I gotcha. You mean like when the same person makes truly offensive racist joke, but then flips to something like quoting “The Bell Curve?”

I tend towards trying to better tolerate offensiveness that is aimed at my own “identity.” My gut instinct is to want to just shut down blatantly racist remarks, but come out the box slinging my own strong raunch in response to sexism. For instance, when I was teased for being the second girl in my class to develop secondary sexual characteristics, I developed the skill of being able to compose insulting limericks very quickly. However, I have noticed that some of my friends who are identified as members of racial minority also prefer to deal directly with racist commentary rather than suppressing it.

My problem with Peterson doesn’t have to do with his crew. I read his book myself, and I was sickened my his recommended approach to dealing with defenseless young children. It creeps me out to think about an adult purposefully choosing to flick a toddler with his fingers. He’s like some terrible person an orphan runs away from in a novel by Dickens or the woman who ran the school in “A Little Princess” or the Grouchy Mayor of Sombreville in “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

As a book dealer, I made it my policy to sell books on any topic, because you never know what use somebody is going to make of a book, even “How to Dispose of a Dead Body.” o

[jacob]

@MI - Having been on the receiving end of a mob a couple of times in my life, there is a third way ... The "standing up for yourself" works on an "individual vs individual" basis. It doesn't work on a "one vs group" basis. And another word for "group vs group" is war whether it's high-intensity or the low-intensity exchanges that defines a divided social media.

To be trite, it's not possible to solve that problem with the same level of thinking that created it. Doing the "individual vs the world" usually ends with much bitterness. The longer the worse.

It's easier to deal with a mob once it's understood why and how it forms and in particular what/who it's a mob in relation to. Mobs do not exist in a vacuum. They're formed around a target that's simple and easy to identify and isolate. What makes a target easy to identify/isolate?

[Mister Imperceptible]

I do agree that the third way is ideal. I would say the target is easy to identify if they are willing to openly express a contrary opinion, and easy to isolate if they have no one with a backbone to defend them. It can be argued that having a contrary opinion and not having friends or advocates are indications that the target has a history of bad behavior, but of course I would disagree with that argument. If 99 people say 2+2=5 they are incorrect no matter how much they bully the 1 person saying 2+2=4. Therefore selecting for agreeableness is in my opinion proof of nothing. The more the 99 people are catered to, the more wrong everyone is.

Having said that I am of course far from immune to losing my temper and being my less than best advocate for my own self. On the hand, if a group of powerful people can whip up a mob in a frenzy as a deflection technique, and the 99 are increasingly unaware of this, I find it increasingly difficult not to be angry without becoming nihilistic/fatalistic. The anger is also evidence of fuel in the tank indicating I have not given up. But certainly it can be directed and managed better.

[7Wannabe5]

It doesn’t have to be expressed difference. For instance, simply being the only human in the room with boobies can make you a target. Also setting the curve in AP Chem.

[jacob]

There are too many human bias quirks to make a counter-attack on a set of beliefs successful. (Oftentimes, attacking something directly even with facts are more likely to further entrench the paradigm. So-called "naive realism" just doesn't describe how humans think.)

======>> <<====== ; This doesn't work.

A more effective way is to go orthogonal (staying inside the paradigm). E.g. instead of attacking consumerism by saying that "spending money is bad", go with "saving money is good". This way the mob will have to resolve the cognitive dissonance on an individual basis.

^
|
|
| <<===== ; This is better.

An even more effective way is to change the paradigm. E.g. instead of making it about consumerism vs producerism, the paradigm is changed to the meta-level to reveal a bigger picture. This makes it harder [for the mob] to identify what it's in opposition to.

+---------+
|..>.........|
|.............|
|..?...<=..|
+---------+ ; This is even better.

In Flatland metaphors, the first is the 1D perspective and a 1D war, then second is 2D, the third is 3D. If you can maneuver in the meta-fields, you can [literally] run circles around those stuck in "us vs them"-thinking. You can both choose to engage or disengage at will.

This all relates back to considering "other people" and their beliefs in addition to one's own. Again, therein lies the problem in that "social justice warriors" and "free speech warriors" are generally not used to doing that yet because that is not their concern. It's therefore up to third parties to try to control the conflict zone.

It's similar to how a smart general can start a war by simply putting some hot-headed soldiers on border patrol. All they see is an enemy and their own willingness to defend themselves and the soldier next to them. The smart general has essentially created an unstable system and a guaranteed outcome w/o having to issue a direct order to start the war.

Another example is when politicians ignore the question and answer with something else (2D); or when they answer in a way that's intended to provide a soundbyte for high-bias "news" (3D). Publishing high-bias "news" full of loaded words works analogously to trigger culture skirmishes which in turn draw up voters who can be used for other purposes.

[7Wannabe5]

Robert Kegan wrote a very good piece, which I can’t locate at the moment, on how white teachers can rise above feelings of defensiveness when they are challenged by minority students with suggestion that they might be racist. I’ve had to deal with this myself and it is not an easy situation.

I am very roughly paraphrasing, but what Kegan suggests is that you need to support students in their strong need to strongly identify before you can expect them to level up to more nuanced perspective. I’ve muddled about trying different approaches, but simple acknowledgment along lines of “Yes, of course, we live in a racist society.” seemed to work best for promoting calm discussion.

Maybe one question that higher functioning version of me might ask of Jordan Peterson would be something like “I agree that small children should be protected from worst natural and social consequences of their own impulsive behavior, but have you considered whether corporal punishment is necessarily best practice as endgame? Can’t we, as the thoughtful adults in the room, come up with a better, more creative alternative? For instance, why can’t we lock the cupboard, take our child by the hand in the parking lot, or hire a sitter for 6 year old when we wish to visit restaurant with subdued ambience? “

[daylen]

Maybe one question that higher functioning version of me might ask of Jordan Peterson would be something like “I agree that small children should be protected from worst natural and social consequences of their own impulsive behavior, but have you considered whether corporal punishment is necessarily best practice as endgame? Can’t we, as the thoughtful adults in the room, come up with a better, more creative alternative?

It seems to me like this expects too much from humans. Sure, it is probably good practice for a sub-population to strive towards a lucid endgame but where/when should the end be? ..and more importantly.. how can everyone in this minority be expected to agree on where/when to set up these goal posts? In a perfect world, perhaps this minority could negotiate perfectly in feasible time, but I am afraid that decisions cannot always be put on hold. Generally, every playground has its own rule-set and every schoolyard moderator has their own domain of agency. This is also generally what Jordan recognizes as a landscape of hierarchies (i.e. not just one pack of lobsters). This is at least what I took away from his work over a year ago.

I tend to standby my initial perception that Jordan is leveling up a sub-set of Kegan2 males who may otherwise stagnate. I may be overestimating the tendency for the rest of the population to ignore his advise if not applicable in their situation. I also suspect that most attempts to improve upon it for a more general crowd will be at the expense of loosing the initial, targeted audience. Hence, it seems to me that the current best course of action [or in-action] on my part is to respect the boundaries of his target audience and every now and then suggest additional avenues to prepared followers on the fringes I happen to cross paths with. Yet, for a select group of young men I would not mind sending them in his direction (though I have not done this thus far due to my relative isolation).

[7Wannabe5]

@daylen:

I grok what you are saying, but I would much more likely recommend “ The Way of the Superior Man” by Deida. I still sometimes consult his companion volume for women on the odd day I can be bothered with trying to better understand men.

Anyways, when my kids were toddlers, my 3 year old son would open the fridge for his 1 year old sister, and she would take out eggs and break them in the floor. My son obviously thought this was a wily scheme, because neither he or the baby could be blamed. So, I came up with wily scheme of my own and ran bungee cord from fridge door to high cupboard. Maybe I just think it’s better to give kids the impression that they should submit, because for the time being you are smarter than them and better able to access tools, rather than simply proving that you are stronger than them and willing to cause pain.

Also, studies have shown that there’s really no such thing as internalized training. The best dogs will eat the steak on the counter if/when they are pretty certain you aren’t around.

[Alphaville]

today while spacing out i remember calling up my dad on some grownup bullshit when i was just 2. he was saying something to my grandmother; earlier he had said the opposite when she was not around. this was just diplomacy and “manners,” but to me, it was pure lies.

i actually remember adults as being full of shit throughout my childhood: teachers, cops, priests, shopkeepers, tv people, rich people, all kinds of grownups: full of shit, lying to keep their power, pretending to be right on the basis of their age and authority. and as a kid, you know.

fuck waiting to “young adulthood” to rebel. the long-term cognitive dissonance will drive you insane

KIDS: START REBELLING TODAY. YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

we, the adults, are already too corrupted to change anything, and will lie and use force to keep things just as we’ve grown accustomed to have them.

[daylen]

@7w5

My objections would be (1) Why not both? Perhaps in a particular order.. and (2) Training with some punishment is a necessary step towards mastery of any skill. Unless you are born with just the right temperament to love mathematics, you probably must be trained in algebraic and numerical calculations before you free up enough working memory to comprehend interesting applications. This training typically uses a negative feedback (+)(shame from bad grades or constrained participation in preferred activities) with little or no positive feedback yet still ends up producing engineers and scientists that learn to like math when the time comes (i.e. perhaps after social maturity). This would not have been possible for many students without the initial training required to intuit the foundations. Providing more positive feedback may be optimal in the case that teachers have the flatter attention discounting function required to implement a stable track in front of each student based upon the positive gratification function of each student(*). This is typically not feasible given (a) the ratio of students to teachers.. and (b) the [attention] opportunity cost required for teachers to anticipate individual student gratification and construct appropriate tracks as opposed to the implementation of punishment in retrospect of performance (i.e. lowering grade -> parent shaming -> fewer opportunities ...etc..) for a larger number of students.

This all lies at the heart of the education institution and plays out in a similar way in the law/court/prison institution. So, unless these institutions are reconstructed upon a positive gratification foundation that does not produce problems elsewhere, then I will resort to a respectful yet mostly passive position relative to movements involving the careful use of negative feedback mechanisms unless convinced otherwise.

(+) Same reasoning applies to physical punishment for a different sub-set of the population and this sub-set also happens to be mostly non-responsive to shaming. Additionally, gratification to this sub-set typically involves some form of dominance. Often with violence and satisfied through video games, sports, gangs, rough housing, and so forth.

(*) Video games can do this well and are generally serving more and more as one of the dominate modes of education. Yet, they are still costly to develop and games capable of teaching deep deductive chains are much more challenging to effectively construct (factorial growth with respect to number of steps?).

[7Wannabe5]

@daylen:

I agree that positive and/or complex-thoughtful reinforcement requires more intelligence/energy/resources than negative reinforcement. That’s part of the reason why I believe that default to negative reinforcement is a cop-out when it comes to your own kids. Obviously, in a classroom situation it is less possible, but it is still the case that the gold standard is achieved through development of personal relationships. Generally, encouraging curiosity or intellectual appetite is better than force feeding of factoids or functions.

The sad thing is when a kid, or even adults in a group I once taught, are internally motivated to learn and succeed, but simply lack the ability. For instance, an older woman whom I was trying to tutor towards GED who simply could not comprehend the concept of negative numbers. I am reading a book on this topic entitled “The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Educational System Perpetuates Social Injustice” by DeBoer.

Anyways, I tried to drop out of school and educate myself in the library (between visits to somewhat older BF) in 10th grade. I was de facto forced to return, but I always felt like I was making my own choices from that point forward. Like when Benjamin Franklin ran away from the stern older brother to whom he had been apprenticed and demonstrated the technique of swimming which he had learned from a book shipped from Europe to people in Philadelphia. Or Augie March. Or Huckleberry Finn. Or Isadora Wing. So, I’m definitely not intended audience.

Odds that I would raise hand and make obnoxious remark at real life Peterson event would be very high. Odds that I would also say something like “Oooh, spank me Daddy.” if provoked, also quite high. I think you can actually learn quite a bit about a man by his reaction when you do that. I also believe that Deida agrees.

[7Wannabe5]

Another point I would like to make is that developmentally most kids go through a phase where they are good obedient citizens around age 7 or Second Grade, but it is wrong- minded to try to force that level of development or behavior from a naturally ebullient 3 year old or a naturally rebellious 13 year old. Some adults even stay stuck in obedient second grader behavior which is quite sad.

[zbigi]

sure, fix your posture and climb on the hierarchy, but then what? in such ponzi schemes, the ones at the bottom of the pyramid end up dead. individual climbing is not a cure for this. and hierarchies don’t always work out favorably for the group, so *we replace them*.

You seem to assume that the only result of the effort put into climbing the hierarchy is the reshuffling of people in said hierarchy. In reality, by the act of climbing, people develop skills and qualities valued by such hierarchy. If the hierarchical structure is completely rotten (such as for example societies in soviet countries), then this may not be too valuable, but in a less dysfunctional society, "climbing the hierarchy" by for example learning to be a better carpenter has plenty of benefits even for the "losers" who don't manage to climb too high. In effect, individual climbing DOES scale positively across entire society, as we end up with people who are on average smarter, more resilient and better adapted to deal with life.

[7Wannabe5]

@zbigi:

Do carpenters generally improve their skills within the context of a hierarchy? I picture them as more solitary, like artists.

**********

I recently watched a few episodes of the classic TV show from my childhood entitled “The Odd Couple” and a thought that came to my mind was that it is kind of odd that the character who is in favor of “cleaning your room” , Felix, is now to be regarded as more masculine than the much messier character of Oscar? This confirmed my overall sense that there is some quite false rather tone-deaf reenactment of mid-20th century “conservative” masculinity being promoted. I remember how men behaved during that era, and I even dated a couple men of near to that generation, and I’m definitely not promoting this behavior as ideal, but the modern men’s movement does not even get it right. The best I can express it is that it wasn’t considered very masculine to be priggish back then, but the modern men’s movement, inclusive of Peterson, does come off as more priggish like Felix.

[Alphaville]

"climbing the hierarchy" by for example learning to be a better carpenter has plenty of benefits even for the "losers" who don't manage to climb too high.

sure, a rising tide lifts all boats, but i think you're conflating jordan peterson with milton friedman.

but in a world where everyone is millionaire, who is left to clean the bathroom?

social hierarchy is not about "skills," it's about relative positioning vis-à-vis another.

you're confusing concepts: capacity for work vs. social climbing skills.

they are not the same thing.

peterson himself in one of his speeches talks about predatory men taking profiting from conscientious women who do the work. good eye for detail at the personal level, but fails to connect that with the new lobsterworld order.

we don't have a real meritocracy: we have winner takes all networks, and we reward sociopaths.

i mean, peterson himself is proof of that: he's not popular because he's a great thinker or a groundbreaking researcher (he's not); he's popular because his half-baked ideas on society charge up a certain youtube demographic which is emotionally susceptible to them.

[zbigi]

Peterson himself said many times that the big drawback of meritocratic society is that those without the comercially-recognized merits may end up destitute. He also said that it's society's duty to take care of them.
As for toilet cleaners, even they can improve themselves in many ways, incl. improving their health, their negotiating skills with bosses etc. A lot of exploitation happen because the exploited feel helpless and the bosses know they can get away with anything (I've observed this with my exploited family members). Peterson helps such people get off their knees and fight for themselves a little.
Basically, Peterson concludes that the social world is in large part predatory and we as living organisms should adapt to it if we want to thrive. He doesn't advocate for some big social reform projects, he wants to help the individuals here and now so that they can better face the hardships that they have. He believes in changing the system via changing the individuals. Whether that will work is up for debate (just to use two examples, both the Catholic Church and Jacob has tried and largely failed at that). Let's not forget that Peterson is a psychotherapist, so he's viewing the world through that lens - I'm sure that, through his practice, he's seen plenty of people with messed up or clearly stupid/harmful viewpoints, whose lives can be dramatically turn for the better by mere improvement on an individual level.

[Alphaville]

Peterson helps such people get off their knees and fight for themselves a little.

yes, for individual therapy and specific issues, i've said so myself, his approach works, and i've used it to help friends in trouble, as a coach.

working to get your life in order of course works, especially in those accustomed to blame others for their troubles. taking responsibility for what you can control is important.

but that's about the extent of its usefulness. it doesn't scale as sound social theory. the individual approach is not a cure-all.

sometimes the little lobsters have to band together to take on the big lobster to avoid getting their claws chopped off. sometimes they have to petition a bigger lobster than their lobster boss to intervene.

and while their lives may often be far from perfect the little lobsters have the right to criticize their world and whatever predatory practices the world allows, rather than naturalize them with lobster comparisons.

[7Wannabe5]

When the number of bacteria in an area reaches a certain number “ quorum”, they emit something like a sticky goo and band together to form a biofilm. So, cooperation is also a pretty core behavior.