Peterson, Harris, etc....
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I'm so glad I don't have social media.
On the topic, I see a lot of criticism of Harris, but every time I read or heard him in full articles/interviews he seems to be a rational guy with pretty good points. Maybe I've missed the crazy stuff.
On the topic, I see a lot of criticism of Harris, but every time I read or heard him in full articles/interviews he seems to be a rational guy with pretty good points. Maybe I've missed the crazy stuff.
That's generally the best way to evaluate all these guys - read the entire book or watch the entire lecture and decide for yourself, rather than having some anonymous twitter troll lift a cherrypicked passage.
I prefer to just skim redcafe comments and poorly reiterate them to friends to express my world view
Same. I think the contention and criticism of Harris is based on his opinion about Islam. I could be mistaken because I haven't heard his thoughts on that particular religion. I watched an old debate with him, 2 rabbis and Christopher Hitchens recently. It was very good.
Its definitely his Islamism critiques that draw the ire of the PC left. Reza Aslan and Glenn Greenwald were initially the main ringleaders of criticizing "the new atheists", which was then followed by the likes of CJ Werleman and eventually led to flare ups like the Bill Maher exchange with Affleck that catapulted things from fringe social media spat to something more mainstream. The narrative then quickly switched from a critique of Islamism to framing anyone who criticized it as a Islamophobic. No one really cares much about Harris's writings on Christianity (for which he is also critical) or Neurocscience. Its usually the same expired polemic about why he hates Islam.
In terms of ridicule, I think it's obvious he even holds back a bit when talking about islam. When he talks about christianity he's much more relaxed and attacks deeper, which is understandable. However he points out the obvious, currently islam has a much more real impact in our lives than christianity. I guess that's where the criticism comes from, but I never found it to be fair.
Some of the other guys mentioned in this thread say shit just to stay in the headlines, I don't put Harris in that category. It's clear he prefers to talk about neuroscience or meditation. In fact meditation is the area where he loses me a bit, sounds a bit weird sometimes but harmless.
Harris has also defended Israel, and that automatically makes you persona non grata among leftists.
I think Harris probably took the biggest hit recently with the racism charges after Vox and others went after him for daring to give Murray of The Bell Curve notoriety a podcast episode. It kind of took off into an uproar, which was amusing because I don’t think most people that were offended actually listened to the interview.
True.
I listened to his podcast with Klein. It was basically a stalemate of Klein moaning about Harris (ie "you rarely have black guests on your podcast" etc) and Harris being defensive about Klein's approach.
We are all Jordan Peterson...
(Edit): El-Baghdadi’s whole thread there is worth a read through.
(Edit): El-Baghdadi’s whole thread there is worth a read through.
One day he will say something that will out himself as the creep of all creeps that I know he is. Ergh
Gender baiter? ffs. What an over-sensitive prat.
"60-90% of kids grow out of gender dysphoria"
Completing the right-wing bingo card
Why are they all so predictable? Mad the way they’re so oblivious to how this makes it impossible to take them seriously.
I can't watch Peterson, he's such a pompous prick. Every time he speaks I get the impression like he thinks he's better than everybody and is almost bored at having to explain to the peasants the way he thinks in ways that our tiny brains could possibly comprehend.
In fairness, he must be getting bored having to explain the same content in each interview.
I've watched only 2 interviews of him but so far that's not the impression I got.
He’s such a muppet. His viewpoints kind of intrigue me though. I don’t agree with him, but it’s such a recognizable point in society.I'd probably be like that if I was on a meat only diet and constipated all the time.
She’s quite impressive. The science seems to chime with what feels intuitive too. Very young kids can’t possibly differentiate between the earliest feelings of homosexuality and being transgender.
It's funny, his last appearance on Joe Rogan has made him look a right fool.
One cider sending him into a month long nihilistic malaise and the 'meat diet' have made him look completely mad.
Possibly, but I don't think it's an excuse. He's communicating to the masses, not to the interviewer. They're just the conduit to us. If he doesn't want to explain the same content he should stop accepting interviews where he's asked the same questions. I just can't take someone seriously who appears that openly arrogant and disdainful. I'd be eager to try and learn something if the person speaking wasn't being a dick about whatever he was talking about.
The exchange at 10:00 was fascinating. Apparently the amount of testosterone one is exposed to in utero, informs how masculine or feminine you are within your own gender. She is suggesting effeminate gay men were exposed to smaller amounts of testosterone, thus the effeminate traits. I had no idea that this is how it plays out.
That's true for all men and women. i.e Lesbians who identify as butch tend to have been exposed to more prenatal testosterone than lesbians who identify as femme.
I’m not an expert and can’t be arsed digging deep into the literature but I do know that every piece of research is open to at least some criticism (the authors highlight these flaws in the “Discussion” section) . So it stands to reason that there are people who will want to pick holes in the studies she quotes, if they don’t like the findings. I’m also sure that a lot (most?) gender dysphoric kids are dealt with sensitively and competently but I’m sure there are plenty of cases where they aren’t and it’s clear that the science, at the very least, seems to call into question the logic in of allowing prepubescent kids go on blockers or have surgery early in their teens. A “wait and see” approach intuitively seems the most sensible and it’s good to hear that the research seems to back this up.
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The criticism here is that they're asking questions from outdated models that didn't include asking the kid "are you a boy or a girl?" and then counting later nonparticipants as the answer they wanted. Then they ran poll of a group of parents on a forum about kids who were thought be trans but weren't that had no weighting or controls and applied it as being universally true. It's extremely shit science. I don't know what kids should be doing or what pills they should be taking - but I can tell when someone is putting forward an extremely bad argument and extremely bad data. Like, what kind of shit ass prediction comes back with a 30% margin or error?
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'And I do apologise, Mr Ferguson, but there is f*ck-all you can do about it'?
I read the article. I understand the criticisms. I would imagine studying this sort of thing is rife with confounding variables and extremely difficult to design trials that factor in future shifts in diagnostic criteria. So it’s got to be close to be impossible to generate any kind of data that is beyond criticism. No matter how clear the hypothesis or carefully designed the protocol might be.
Like I said, I’m no expert, though. Unlike the person in the video, who has a PhD in this field. So I guess I’ll have to accept your learned opinion that she’s been fooled by “extremely shit science” and get back in my box.
The bit about porn addiction at 21:00 not being a real thing was pretty interesting as well. Looking forward to part 2 of the interview once its up.