Jordan Peterson

[Berzerker]

I thought about mentioning that but petty corrections are so boring

 

[Traitorfish]

Doing this several times, so we have multiple theoretical alternatives to consider, would be Step One. Step Two would be starting to think about America, the concept, as a terrain of political struggle and considering the various ways different interests and ideologies have tried to define America. Step Three might be thinking about the best way to understand America, the concept, to accomplish our desired political ends...whatever those may be. I'm of the opinion that declaring the essence of America to be slaveholding and genocide and Donald Trump is a grave mistake from a pragmatic perspective, whether it's "true" in some metaphysical sense or not.

The real truth, of course, is that America has no essence. It's just a bunch of people doing a bunch of stuff, like everywhere else. The stuff only emerges as "America" when people decided to collectively imagine it as such, and that collective imagining is mostly coordinated through institutions.

 

[Lexicus]

Lincoln's Presidency is a great moment of redemption in an otherwise quite sordid and blood-soaked affair. And so he makes my list. (note: the list is non-exhaustive)

The real truth, of course, is that America has no essence. It's just a bunch of people doing a bunch of stuff, like everywhere else. The stuff only emerges as "America" when people decided to collectively imagine it as such, and that collective imagining is mostly coordinated through institutions.

Well sure. Which is why, going back to the post that started this all, attempting to reduce "America" to an "ideology" is kind of silly.

 

[Berzerker]

Lincoln signed that death warrant after the war began, his predecessor vetoed it

 

[El_Machinae]

Self-identifying with pretty much any political term gets you in with a whole lot of political mass murderers, because the reality is people playing politics tend towards the mass murdery side. It’s got little to nothing to do with the theory of the ideology itself and more to do with the tendency of power and hierarchy. Communists get stuck with Stalin (which we really don’t deserve, and who really gets exaggerated) and conservatives get Thatcher, Reagan, Churchill, Hoover, Bush, Nixon, Trump, the Koch brothers, and plenty others. Sure with many of these the lines between conservatism, fascism, and just general shillism blur, but we’re going purely off of self-id here.

It's not so much that 'you get stuck with' Stalin, but that self-identifying as a communist usually indicates that a long enough conversation will show that you're quite happy to hurt people in order to make things 'better' according to your definitions. Usually without consideration of other people's opinion on the topic of whether they're damaged by your actions.

A person self-identifying as a 'conservative' won't necessarily end up there. That would be more like someone saying they're 'white power' or a 'nationalist'. It's my experience that if any American communist were willing to live like their comrades in the Soviet Union did (at their quality of life), they'd have a fairly rapid ascension to the financial position where they could retire and then spend all of their time on political activism. Not true for everyone, but definitely true for the majority. But they choose not to. Their solidarity with the previous victims of their philosophy ends extremely rapidly.

 

[Kyriakos]

On a tangent, it is interesting how multicultural participation fails (voluntarily) where there would be no actual forces against it, ie on the web itself. For example, on this forum, (moreso on the OT), we are just people from the anglosphere and Europe - with many countries there also missing.
It seems that the discussions about overarching issues (including left vs right, globalism and multiculturalism) largely are carried out by non interested parties, projecting and hunting other ghosts, while only a minority actually present an experience of the issues.

It is not very different at TWC. Granted, strategy games are sort of directed at introverted white people in the first place.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's not so much that 'you get stuck with' Stalin, but that self-identifying as a communist usually indicates that a long enough conversation will show that you're quite happy to hurt people in order to make things 'better' according to your definitions. Usually without consideration of other people's opinion on the topic of whether they're damaged by your actions.

In Europe, we usually just call that "government".

 

[aelf]

You might wish to read my answer again. I specifically said that a fact may be "irrelevant".

Doesn't change a thing. Your position remains that it's acceptable to express any view or opinion, regardless of what wider society thinks or feels about it.

 

[Yeekim]

Doesn't change a thing. Your position remains that it's acceptable to express any view or opinion, regardless of what wider society thinks or feels about it.

Uh... no.
A fact is not an opinion nor view and vice versa. I'm a bit struggling for proper terms here, but "IQ 80 people require more work than they can offer back in terms of productivity" is a statement that is, objectively, either true or false, i.e. it can be proven or disproven. You can't do that with views and opinions. There certainly are views and opinions which are neither legally acceptable (depending on jurisdiction) nor morally acceptable (at least in my view).
Facts themselves be "unaccetable". They can be irrelevant. In certan social contexts, mentioning them can be impolite. One can certainly formulate unacceptable views and opinions based on them. In this particular case, Peterson's opinions or views weren't mentioned.

 

[metatron]

2) The assertion that Marxist-Leninist regimes are "essentially social democracies" is utterly absurd. Every Marxist-Leninist regime ever has violently suppressed the independent organizations of the working class where those have challenged or even looked like challenging the Party's authority.

Yeah, still not hearing how this is any worse than western liberal capitalism?

If only we could test the popularity of the whole thing on a sample bigger than one person.
Oh right, somebody already did.
I keep forgetting that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Uh... no.
A fact is not an opinion nor view and vice versa. I'm a bit struggling for proper terms here, but "IQ 80 people require more work than they can offer back in terms of productivity" is a statement that is, objectively, either true or false, i.e. it can be proven or disproven. You can't do that with views and opinions. There certainly are views and opinions which are neither legally acceptable (depending on jurisdiction) nor morally acceptable (at least in my view).
Facts themselves be "unaccetable". They can be irrelevant. In certan social contexts, mentioning them can be impolite. One can certainly formulate unacceptable views and opinions based on them. In this particular case, Peterson's opinions or views weren't mentioned.

Problem is that the potential "fact" in question effectively defies any legitimate proof. "Require work" is a pretty subjective concept. "Offering back in terms of productivity" is a collection of words that is pretty much completely devoid of specific meaning. So while it "follows the form" of a fact, it is actually just an opinion. Those who have a desire to accept it (a particular axe to grind) will accept it, and others won't.

 

[innonimatu]

In Europe, we usually just call that "government".

I was going to say (more verbosely) the same thing!

 

[aelf]

Uh... no.
A fact is not an opinion nor view and vice versa. I'm a bit struggling for proper terms here, but "IQ 80 people require more work than they can offer back in terms of productivity" is a statement that is, objectively, either true or false, i.e. it can be proven or disproven. You can't do that with views and opinions. There certainly are views and opinions which are neither legally acceptable (depending on jurisdiction) nor morally acceptable (at least in my view).
Facts themselves be "unaccetable". They can be irrelevant. In certan social contexts, mentioning them can be impolite. One can certainly formulate unacceptable views and opinions based on them. In this particular case, Peterson's opinions or views weren't mentioned.

Besides what Tim has said, in the first place, your attempt at differentiating "facts" and "opinion" are certainly puzzling here. If there's no conclusive evidence, then "IQ 80 people require more work than they can offer back in terms of productivity" is conjecture, or at best a hypothesis. Is there anything that clearly differentiates a conjecture or hypothesis from views or opinions?

Furthermore, even if we're talking about facts, people can quite legitimately object to simply throwing any fact around regardless of consequences. Maybe you've established that someone is stupid. Would you be less of an arse by saying that to him/her? Now, why do you think people might consider you an arse if you did that?

 

[Lexicus]

Just saw the first instance of what I hope becomes a new meme genre:

@Kyriakos you should like this, @Mouthwash you have to admit this is funny

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Uh... no.
A fact is not an opinion nor view and vice versa. "IQ 80 people require more work than they can offer back in terms of productivity" is a statement that is, objectively, either true or false, i.e. it can be proven or disproven.

The statement can only be proven or disproven as fact according to one's subjective definition of "productivity" and "requiring work", therefore it is entirely arbitrary whether it is true or false.

One can never be "objectively" productive. Being productive means working towards some greater goal, and what that goal is is again arbitrary.

edit: @timsup2nuthin already said this, but in better English

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Is there anything that clearly differentiates a conjecture or hypothesis from views or opinions?

Yes. A hypothesis is falsifiable. You have an anticipated experience if it is true, and a different anticipated experience if it is not true.

"On average, 80 IQ people require more work than they presently offer back in productivity" is therefore clearly different than "lettuce is better than cast iron". You could actually set up an experiment for the former, though you'd want to be very careful with what you're using to measure work and productivity it's possible in principle.

The statement can only be proven or disproven as fact according to one's subjective definition of "productivity" and "requiring work", therefore it is entirely arbitrary whether it is true or false.

No. It does not follow that the definition of "productivity" and "work" is arbitrary.

Besides, no matter what standards you choose, for that given set of standards it is still a true or false statement. If these standards are useful, the true/false outcome is also useful.

 

[Lexicus]

Besides, no matter what standards you choose, for that given set of standards it is still a true or false statement. If these standards are useful, the true/false outcome is also useful.

Hint: none of the standards will be useful and therefore the statement is not useful, except as a way for others to know that the person making it is a eugenicist douchebag.

I never miss an opportunity to quote this:

Whenever I hear an economist use the word “efficiency” (or “productivity”), I can guess with near 100% accuracy that he (it usually is a he, as I’ll explain below) hasn’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about. With rare exceptions, he is inappropriately applying an engineering term to an economic process he does not understand.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hint: none of the standards will be useful

Let us not avert our eyes from reality and immediately bend over to ad hominem.

If you're telling me it's impossible, *in principle* to come up with standards that measure productivity in a way that accurately or somewhat accurately predicts $$$ (or any other outcome measure) generated/consumed on average you're making an extraordinary claim. If you're telling me that a model that does this accurately is nevertheless not useful, you're still making an extraordinary claim.

If you're trying to say something else, please clarify.

 

[metatron]

Just saw the first instance of what I hope becomes a new meme genre:

@Kyriakos you should like this, @Mouthwash you have to admit this is funny

Yeah, that's not gonna backfire on Burqa Feminism™.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes. A hypothesis is falsifiable. You have an anticipated experience if it is true, and a different anticipated experience if it is not true.

"On average, 80 IQ people require more work than they presently offer back in productivity" is therefore clearly different than "lettuce is better than cast iron". You could actually set up an experiment for the former, though you'd want to be very careful with what you're using to measure work and productivity it's possible in principle.

Problem is that for every experiment that you set up that nominally proves the hypothesis you could set up an equally valid experiment that disproves it just by adjusting across the spectrum of valid measures of work. For every "when I assign this guy a brain surgery I have to supervise him so much that it would be easier to do it myself" I will show you a guy happily digging a ditch for me to lay in a water main where all I had to do was spray paint a line on the ground when I dropped him off. The elitism inherent in the statement itself will incline the person who made it to take the brain surgeon proof as definitive, but I'm still not wanting to dig that ditch myself.