Peterson, Harris, etc....

nimic said:
You're not really in a position to be complaining about a lack of nuance when you're basing it partly on something that never happened (him describing them as far-right). Calling it a "hitpiece" and "character assassination" is not very nuanced either, to be honest.

Obviously you're free to describe it however you want, but it would be more helpful if you were to engage the content of the article rather than focusing on what you think the motivations are. Is anything he's saying actually incorrect, even if for the wrong reasons? Not as far as I can tell. As @oneniltothearsenal points out, all of these people have sometimes actively cultivated very dubious followers.
Click to expand...

The title is "
Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right"

Well there is a lot to unpack and a lot of the links towards the sources don't work(at least for me). I just went on to read the email exchange between Sam and Ezra Klein and have to admit that having to read all that, plus the articles about Sam both from Vox or the Salon is a lot. It's not very condensed. It would honestly take me days to get through all of this. But I admit, I probably jumped the gun, but I certainly don't have the stamina to go through all the long reads associated with this.
 
Last edited:
nimic said:
You're not really in a position to be complaining about a lack of nuance when you're basing it partly on something that never happened (him describing them as far-right). Calling it a "hitpiece" and "character assassination" is not very nuanced either, to be honest.

Obviously you're free to describe it however you want, but it would be more helpful if you were to engage the content of the article rather than focusing on what you think the motivations are. Is anything he's saying actually incorrect, even if for the wrong reasons? Not as far as I can tell. As @oneniltothearsenal points out, all of these people have sometimes actively cultivated very dubious followers.
Click to expand...

We can do both, especially if we find the author's motives to be dubious and self-aggrandizing. Some of the article is decent, while other parts read like he gradually ran out of ideas and simply resorted to plucking one or two objectionable things to each different name he could think of.

This creates a bizarre scenario where readers are left to ponder if Dawkins is in some way tied to Jeffrey Epstein. It must be something in the water at Slate since another writer there suggested Dennett and Dawkins once flew on Epstein's private jet 20 years ago.
 
Last edited:
Gehrman said:
The title is "
Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right"

Well there is a lot to unpack and a lot of the links towards the sources don't work(at least for me). I just went on to read the email exchange between Sam and Ezra Klein and have to admit that having to read all that, plus the articles about Sam both from Vox or the Salon is a lot to unpack. It's not very condensed. It would honestly take me days to get through all of this. But I admit, I probably jumped the gun, but I certainly don't have the stamina to go through all the long reads associated with this.
Click to expand...

The Harris v Klein debate was pretty interesting.
 
DJ Jeff said:
James Lindsay's the biggest piece of shit thief out there and he took all his watered down takes from far more insightful people who have since been banned from Twitter
Click to expand...

Who are the insightfull people he took his watered down takes from? And considering they have been banned from Twitter, I doubt whether they were really that insightful.
 
DJ Jeff said:
@WokeCapital on twitter was saying everything Lindsay would eventually pilfer way way before he was piping up
Click to expand...

I did read his and pluckrose's "Cynical theories" but found it rather dry despite the glowing reviews. I find his twitter persona rather bufoonish which backfires if he's in the past made a rather good point.
 
Gehrman said:
I did read his and pluckrose's "Cynical theories" but found it rather dry despite the glowing reviews. I find his twitter persona rather bufoonish which backfires if he's in the past made a rather good point.
Click to expand...
Yeah he's too into that grievance stuff where you react to insane articles angrily. I can't stick that. People would do their case a world of good by endeavoring not to be whiny whenever possible even if they're right
 
DJ Jeff said:
Anyone ever see that Cumtown Peterson imitation where its like "Actually, I did a study and it says it's gay to get pussy". Funny stuff
Click to expand...

the real cancel culture is there's a 50% chance of a ban if one does a randomly selected cumtown bit
 
DJ Jeff said:
Yeah he's too into that grievance stuff where you react to insane articles angrily. I can't stick that. People would do their case a world of good by endeavoring not to be whiny whenever possible even if they're right
Click to expand...

To be honest I think Lindsay has merit as a watchdog on some topics such as when especially the Washington post, Vox and NYT post articles such as "the US has a problem of multiracial whiteness" when more non-white people voted for Trump during the last election or when non-whites engage in racial violence that they are "enacting white supremacy". For me the first issue is to infantilize the non-white voters to vote they way did however much I disagree with them, the 2nd is to promote a narrative where people can only commit racial violence if they are "infected" with whiteness which I consider an incredibly abstract invalid concept to describe the reality that any person regardless of skin colour is capable of doing abohorrent things. Personally I don't think there is any lack of critism of the right in the US, but I think critism of the left(as far as america goes) should be understood because they may actually have a point on some issues and most of us(on the caf anyway and in Europe) want the left to win.
 
Last edited:
entropy said:
Click to expand...

I can only speak to the Sam Harris bit as its the only aspect I know about but almost everything he has written is deliberately misrepresenting the reality. Therefore, not sure his opinion is worth any more than yours or mine, and possibly less as hes deliberately mis-stating Harris position to fit his (author) narrative.

I'm not going rehash that debate again on here, but when the opening piece of evidence is so maliciously wrong, I stop reading.
 
Raoul said:
The Harris v Klein debate was pretty interesting.
Click to expand...
Agreed, and I subscribe to both. It is possible to do such things, much as some would argue othwewise.

Purity tests are a race to the bottom imo. Everyone is flawed, everyone has said something wrong and that doesn't invalidate everything else they do. There is nuance and grayness everywhere, yet there's a special burgeoning group of internet folk who delight more in finding reasons to not think about these authors points than to consider the points themselves.
 
Throw enough shit and hope some will stick, is the strategy. Cowardly.. If the article is picked up, it will take "the accused" too much time to clean up the mess while also running the risk of escalating the damage done. Better to just ignore.
 
does this belong in this thread (since i'd argue he's the intellectual forerunner of today's classical liberals and/or conservatives, and his claims have been repeated by both people in the title)? in the racism thread? or in one of the PC/catch-all-culture-war threads?

Anyway, it's a fun one because in one sentence he implicitly accepts systemic racism and then says it's good.

 
berbatrick said:
does this belong in this thread (since i'd argue he's the intellectual forerunner of today's classical liberals and/or conservatives, and his claims have been repeated by both people in the title)? in the racism thread? or in one of the PC/catch-all-culture-war threads?

Anyway, it's a fun one because in one sentence he implicitly accepts systemic racism and then says it's good.

Click to expand...


The most unfairly maligned person in our lifetime!

Also a cross burner during the Civil Rights Movement, but hey, we all do edy stuff in our youth.
 
Russell Brand is really going down in my estimations. Keeps having Peterson on his show and the pair of them talk aaaaaabsolute bullshit. Now, Ben Shapiro. Engaging with folks of alternative views is of course fine, but he doesn't challenge them at all and most of the shows content is how they all believe in God.
 
LuisNaniencia said:
Russell Brand is really going down in my estimations. Keeps having Peterson on his show and the pair of them talk aaaaaabsolute bullshit. Now, Ben Shapiro. Engaging with folks of alternative views is of course fine, but he doesn't challenge them at all and most of the shows content is how they all believe in God.
Click to expand...

That's just Brand's schtick. He rarely challenges his guests and probably feels a more productive conversation can be had by disarming them so they lower their guards and have a normal conversation about issues.
 
Raoul said:
That's just Brand's schtick. He rarely challenges his guests and probably feels a more productive conversation can be had by disarming them so they lower their guards and have a normal conversation about issues.
Click to expand...

I've been disappointed. He readily challenged politicians and the like in his "revolution phase". Peterson has said some very troubling things and has a measurable influence on groups like incels and the alt right and he shouldn't be given an easy ride simply because they share the same religion.
 
LuisNaniencia said:
I've been disappointed. He readily challenged politicians and the like in his "revolution phase". Peterson has said some very troubling things and has a measurable influence on groups like incels and the alt right and he shouldn't be given an easy ride simply because they share the same religion.
Click to expand...

I just wish Peterson would shut up about hierarchy. I think if you've seen about 1 or 2 Peterson videos, it's basically just the same stuff he rehashes with a few different anecdotes here and there.
 
Are we allowed to call him racist, or is that cancel culture gone mad?

Typical loony left, calling everyone a racist even if all they did was say that black people are inherently stupid
 
It sickens me how these IDW frauds are now peddling on vaccine disinformation. Go to the Twitter feed of any so-called 'marketplace of ideas' warrior -- Rubin, Pool, Weinstein, Nawaz, Chen, Lindsay, it doesn't really matter at this point -- and you'll inevitably find some sort of a snide comment about the vaccines. It's safe to say I'm embarrassed to have taken them seriously in the past.
 
Kopral Jono said:
It sickens me how these IDW frauds are now peddling on vaccine disinformation. Go to the Twitter feed of any so-called 'marketplace of ideas' warrior -- Rubin, Pool, Weinstein, Nawaz, Chen, Lindsay, it doesn't really matter at this point -- and you'll inevitably find some sort of a snide comment about the vaccines. It's safe to say I'm embarrassed to have taken them seriously in the past.
Click to expand...

It’s interesting to see how many of them have gone full loony about vaccines while Sam Harris has taken the exact opposite stance and seems to be falling out with former friends on this issue.

Which fits with what I always say about commentators like this. When their opinion on every controversial issue is 100% predictable based on their politics/previous opinions then you should ignore their opinion on everything.

Sam Harris currently standing out as the only one whose opinion on everything should at least be listened to (even if you disagree). You could see this coming by him being willing to call out Trump as a dangerous idiot, unlike most of those other names you mention.
 
nimic said:
tldw?
Click to expand...

Basically has a go at the “I’m just asking questions/doing my own research” mentality when it comes to stuff where there is overwhelming evidence and expert opinion that the mainstream opinion is the right one. 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. Trump really is a blow-hard idiot. Climate change is real. Vaccines work. And so on.

He also makes an interesting point that a lot of them are motivated by distrust and dislike of publicly funded institutions (CDC, FDA, WHO etc) but there’s a time and place to express that distrust. The middle of a global pandemic is neither the time or the place to deliberately undermine confidence in the institutions we need to help steer us back towards normality.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Basically has a go at the “I’m just asking questions/doing my own research” mentality when it comes to stuff where there is overwhelming evidence and expert opinion that the mainstream opinion is the right one. 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. Trump really is a blow-hard idiot. Climate change is real. Vaccines work. And so on.

He also makes an interesting point that a lot of them are motivated by distrust and dislike of publicly funded institutions (CDC, FDA, WHO etc) but there’s a time and place to express that distrust. The middle of a global pandemic is neither the time or the place to deliberately undermine confidence in the institutions we need to help steer us back towards normality.
Click to expand...

That's interesting. Maybe he's starting to realize that he doesn't belong in the group he has associated himself with (and often been associed with by others, but not exclusively).
 
nimic said:
That's interesting. Maybe he's starting to realize that he doesn't belong in the group he has associated himself with (and often been associed with by others, but not exclusively).
Click to expand...

I think so. He seems to have been pretty close to Brett Weinstein but the way he talks about him now makes it seem like there’s no way back for him.
 
nimic said:
That's interesting. Maybe he's starting to realize that he doesn't belong in the group he has associated himself with (and often been associed with by others, but not exclusively).
Click to expand...

But isn't part of the point that you can come together and have a discussion and disagree and then further down the line things can unravel to the point where you no longer want to be associated with the company? I for instance enjoy when people from the opposite ends of ideas come together for discussion, but I can on this specific issue understand Sam not wanting to platform vaccine hesitancy, but what I'm more against is essentially the whole "club" thing where you are essentially betraying your" "tribe" is your associating yourself with and platforming someone with a different ideology than yourself.
 
I haven't seen or heard that much from Sam Harris, but a left-leaning and progressive friend of mine is a big fan of him. Seeing as he's a smart guy as well, I've basically just accepted Sam Harris isn't as bad as the group he occasionally gets lumped into.
 
He’s got a terrible bee in his bonnet about identity politics and “wokeism” which often makes him come across badly but he has has an extremely logical/rational way of trying to unpick complex issuees, which is almost always interesting to listen to. Plus he is willing to recognise and defer to legitimate experts on most important topics. Which is refreshing.
 
Raoul said:
I find listening to him frustrating. He seems to talk a lot and not leave me with the impression that he's said very much.
Click to expand...

Yeah, his AMA’s tend to end up as unfocused rambling. I only posted this one because it’s all about his differences of opinion with the “IDW”

I haven’t listened to him in ages but enjoyed the recent interview with Eric Topol on covid which triggered this AMA.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It’s interesting to see how many of them have gone full loony about vaccines while Sam Harris has taken the exact opposite stance and seems to be falling out with former friends on this issue.

Which fits with what I always say about commentators like this. When their opinion on every controversial issue is 100% predictable based on their politics/previous opinions then you should ignore their opinion on everything.

Sam Harris currently standing out as the only one whose opinion on everything should at least be listened to (even if you disagree). You could see this coming by him being willing to call out Trump as a dangerous idiot, unlike most of those other names you mention.
Click to expand...

I like this.

Can I ask where you are on Peterson in this regard? He often makes a long point about the extreme left and then slips in at the end "and this is also true about the extreme right". He never seems to do the same but the other way round, which makes me highly suspicious.

The reason I'm concerned with Peterson is that one of my oldest friends has been turned onto him by another of his friends, who is a church minister incidentally. I worry about Peterson being an alt right gateway as many think he is.
 
LuisNaniencia said:
I like this.

Can I ask where you are on Peterson in this regard? He often makes a long point about the extreme left and then slips in at the end "and this is also true about the extreme right". He never seems to do the same but the other way round, which makes me highly suspicious.

The reason I'm concerned with Peterson is that one of my oldest friends has been turned onto him by another of his friends, who is a church minister incidentally. I worry about Peterson being an alt right gateway as many think he is.
Click to expand...

I haven’t listened to Peterson as much but he generally comes across as one of those “predictable on every issue” people I’m referring to there. It’s possible he was more complex a while ago but ended up radicalised by his choice of company. Either way, I think you’re right to be suspicious.

For what it’s worth, I think the biggest danger from any of them (including Sam Harris) is their effect on your YouTube algorithm. Especially for the young, vulnerable and/or impressionable.

This is an excellent podcast on what can happen with too much time on youtube listening to people like Peterson. Maybe get your friend to listen to this first?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.