Jordan Peterson

[Bootstoots]

As chance would have it, I've been binge-watching this guy for the last few days. I've been ignoring the gender stuff and focusing on all the other things he has to say - which is quite a lot.

I really like the way he takes the twin problems of nihilism and of young men drifting with no purpose in life seriously. Now this is in large part because I'm in that boat - essentially all meaning, and the ability to create it in an existentialist way, collapsed for me about five years ago and has not come back. This has caused me a downward spiral of depression and self-destructive behavior. And he's pretty good about understanding that problem and showing ways out of it. He manages to be truly motivational without vacuously glossing over the horrible parts of living, on the one hand, or taking an entirely "tough love" approach on the other. So I think there's value in what he says at least for personal development, if that's what you need.

It's quite possible that his IQ is in the 150 range. University professors have a high average IQ - probably something like 130 or 2 standard deviations above the mean. If this is true, more than 10% of them would be above 150, which I do believe to be the case. So his claim is quite plausible.

Of course, all IQ measures is how good you are at abstract reasoning. You could easily be the math genius friend of mine, whose continual perfect scores on standardized tests essentially guarantee he has an IQ of at least 150. He's also an anarcho-capitalist of the Rothbard persuasion and is very good at using his reasoning skills to defend the position he took for less-than-reasonable reasons. Math geeks tend to take axioms and deduce things from them without taking empirical reality into account, so he imagines that people work the way they do in economics or game theory textbooks, rather than the complex and profoundly non-rational ways they really do work. Also, while he now earns a 6-figure salary, he's rapidly drinking himself to death.

That said, it is still an important measure of how well someone will do in an intellectually challenging environment. It does convey real information. It just has to be understood that IQ isn't a measure of skeptical or creative thinking and has little bearing on how right someone is.

 

[Kyriakos]

As chance would have it, I've been binge-watching this guy for the last few days. I've been ignoring the gender stuff and focusing on all the other things he has to say - which is quite a lot.

I really like the way he takes the twin problems of nihilism and of young men drifting with no purpose in life seriously. Now this is in large part because I'm in that boat - essentially all meaning, and the ability to create it in an existentialist way, collapsed for me about five years ago and has not come back. This has caused me a downward spiral of depression and self-destructive behavior. And he's pretty good about understanding that problem and showing ways out of it. He manages to be truly motivational without vacuously glossing over the horrible parts of living, on the one hand, or taking an entirely "tough love" approach on the other. So I think there's value in what he says at least for personal development, if that's what you need.

It's quite possible that his IQ is in the 150 range. University professors have a high average IQ - probably something like 130 or 2 standard deviations above the mean. If this is true, more than 10% of them would be above 150, which I do believe to be the case. So his claim is quite plausible.

Of course, all IQ measures is how good you are at abstract reasoning. You could easily be the math genius friend of mine, whose continual perfect scores on standardized tests essentially guarantee he has an IQ of at least 150. He's also an anarcho-capitalist of the Rothbard persuasion and is very good at using his reasoning skills to defend the position he took for less-than-reasonable reasons. Math geeks tend to take axioms and deduce things from them without taking empirical reality into account, so he imagines that people work the way they do in economics or game theory textbooks, rather than the complex and profoundly non-rational ways they really do work. Also, while he now earns a 6-figure salary, he's rapidly drinking himself to death.

That said, it is still an important measure of how well someone will do in an intellectually challenging environment. It does convey real information. It just has to be understood that IQ isn't a measure of skeptical or creative thinking and has little bearing on how right someone is.

(degree of) Intelligence is, indeed (and as you know this is not some new opinion), degree of complexity in thinking. Of course one can be wrong, while being wrong in a complicated manner. And be right, while being right in a simple manner (includes anything up to the absolute simplicity of being right in agreeing with something right, without basing your own agreement on something right).

I personally - intuitively- doubt that highly intelligent people are into bickering and riling. Which this Peterson does seem to be fond of. Relatively intelligent ones, sure, but i can't picture an actual genius being so pointless.
There can be extreme/rare show-type riling, of course. But last i've heard Peterson isn't Milo. And while my op was fun-oriented, i was thinking of whether this person had produced any meaningful work, something actually to be read and further knowledge. Is there some such work by him? And if so, what is it about, and of what type is it? Cause in his field it is easy to present theories without any definitive proof of worth, which can even mean they may be fleeting fireworks. Psychology - i take it he isn't a psychiatrist - is known to produce a multitude of wild theories of this type.

 

[Bootstoots]

(degree of) Intelligence is, indeed (and as you know this is not some new opinion), degree of complexity in thinking. Of course one can be wrong, while being wrong in a complicated manner. And be right, while being right in a simple manner (includes anything up to the absolute simplicity of being right in agreeing with something right, without basing your own agreement on something right).

I personally - intuitively- doubt that highly intelligent people are into bickering and riling. Which this Peterson does seem to be fond of. Relatively intelligent ones, sure, but i can't picture an actual genius being so pointless.
There can be extreme/rare show-type riling, of course. But last i've heard Peterson isn't Milo. And while my op was fun-oriented, i was thinking of whether this person had produced any meaningful work, something actually to be read and further knowledge. Is there some such work by him? And if so, what is it about, and of what type is it? Cause in his field it is easy to present theories without any definitive proof of worth, which can even mean they may be fleeting fireworks. Psychology - i take it he isn't a psychiatrist - is known to produce a multitude of wild theories of this type.

Yeah, he has. There's Maps of Meaning, on the psychology of religious belief, and 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, taking a practical approach for how to live. He's not full of far-out psychobabble at all, even though he does take Freud and Jung (mostly Jung) seriously and was inspired by them.

From what I've seen, he isn't just picking pointless fights either - he appears pretty careful with his language. He does say things that aren't exactly PC, e.g. that there are personality differences on average between men and women, and that this drives differences in life outcomes such as the wage gap. This has some truth to it but he's likely overstating the case. He's also not great on transgender issues, although I'm not sure of his exact positions there.

 

[Narz]

Speech is largely a physical talent. IQ has little bearing on it.

One can train one''s speech ability

 

[Kyriakos]

Yeah, he has. There's Maps of Meaning, on the psychology of religious belief, and 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, taking a practical approach for how to live. He's not full of far-out psychobabble at all, even though he does take Freud and Jung (mostly Jung) seriously and was inspired by them.

From what I've seen, he isn't just picking pointless fights either - he appears pretty careful with his language. He does say things that aren't exactly PC, e.g. that there are personality differences on average between men and women, and that this drives differences in life outcomes such as the wage gap. This has some truth to it but he's likely overstating the case. He's also not great on transgender issues, although I'm not sure of his exact positions there.

From the link (book synopsis) :

"Why have people from different cultures and eras formulated myths and stories with similar structures? What does this similarity tell us about the mind, morality, and structure of the world itself? From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind."

I can't say this sounds good - to me. Is there any article one can freely read of his? Cause if he is proposing some theory of ties between what we 'know' of how the brain works, and patterns in myths/other literature, i think that most people who have some interest in this type of theory should be sceptical of the worth - scope is all over the place, but i only saw the synopsis so an article would be better I have read Freud and Jung, not their entire work, but a number of works by Freud, and Jung's large autobiography.
Can't say if this actual work of his is 'psychobabble', but the synopsis of it does make one suspect so.

 

[Bootstoots]

He's at least pretty clear in his speaking and the other book which is intended for a general audience. I haven't followed him for long though and haven't read Maps of Meaning or any articles by him, so I can't say for sure whether he lapses into arcane nonsense or stays clear. Maybe Google Scholar has something free?

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I personally - intuitively- doubt that highly intelligent people are into bickering and riling. Which this Peterson does seem to be fond of. Relatively intelligent ones, sure, but i can't picture an actual genius being so pointless.

Wanna bet? My Mensa chapter is full of nitwits who love nothing better than to one up each other, and any other victim they can find. It's all about proving how intelligent you are, which in my opinion is a complete waste of time, not to mention very rude. The problem is all of these pseudo-intellectuals who populate universities and writer's workshops, thinking that they are oh-so-brilliant, and they look down their nose at Joe the plumber. I have the highest IQ in my chapter. I'm a doctor, a therapist and an educator, and I would much rather have a beer with Joe the plumber than talk to any of those self important snobs. Sorry, but I live in the real world and there are real, genuine, down to earth people out there, and they all have a voice. It may not be the voice of some elitist sounding writer or video blogger, but it deserves to be heard. Those are the people that matter.

I've mentioned this before on this forum, but IQ is only useful as a measure of intellectual impairment, not how brilliant you are.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Wanna bet? My Mensa chapter is full of nitwits who love nothing better than to one up each other, and any other victim they can find. It's all about proving how intelligent you are, which in my opinion is a complete waste of time, not to mention very rude. The problem is all of these pseudo-intellectuals who populate universities and writer's workshops, thinking that they are oh-so-brilliant, and they look down their nose at Joe the plumber. I have the highest IQ in my chapter. I'm a doctor, a therapist and an educator, and I would much rather have a beer with Joe the plumber than talk to any of those self important snobs. Sorry, but I live in the real world and there are real, genuine, down to earth people out there, and they all have a voice. It may not be the voice of some elitist sounding writer or video blogger, but it deserves to be heard. Those are the people that matter.

I've mentioned this before on this forum, but IQ is only useful as a measure of intellectual impairment, not how brilliant you are.

This, to a degree. It's a valid answer to the erroneous claim about intelligent people not being into bickering and riling. But it isn't a very charitable assessment as to why they are at least as likely to have those social impairments, along with a host of other versions of 'rude.'

I'm going to use height as an example rather than intelligence. When I was a car salesman I met an engineer from a manufacturer. He came to the dealership for some product introduction that I don't remember, but we had an interesting conversation about design. Cars are built for people within three standard deviations of the mean, because that covers 95% of the population. As the guy said, "it's not that we don't care about you just because you are taller than that, it's just that there aren't enough of you so we don't give a ____." Then he said, "But, get over it, you get to be tall."

So I've observed since then that he was right, the world is just not really designed with me in mind. Shower nozzles aimed at my chest, cars, airplane seats, theater seats, heck, just chairs...certainly submarines as I recall. Kitchen cabinets (yeah, I can get stuff off the top shelf, but why is everything stuffed all the way back on a bottom shelf that I have to lay on the floor to see?). Lamps hang where I hit them with my head, and shopping for clothes is basically reduced to buying whatever fits, if anything, unless i go to a specialty store. And people are sympathetic if you are short, but as he said, at least I get to be tall.

So let's take a look at these several million people who are IQ 150+. Sure, IQ is a useful measure of impairment, and someone as far removed from the normal range as they are, but in the opposite direction, is being taken care of in a group home. No one ever expects them to be normal, or act normal. Because they aren't normal. And kids can smell not normal. Maybe nobody could ever put their finger on it, but just about every one of those millions of people grew up knowing there was something just not quite right about them, because there was no shortage of people telling them so. Schools aren't made for them. They learn too fast, too easily. That bothers the other kids, and maybe the teachers who remember working so much harder. They probably inherited the trait, so they probably have at least one if not two misfit parents at home who have their own problems. At some point they think that maybe "playing dumb" will help them fit in, and find out that getting caught playing dumb makes them guilty of the worst act of arrogance they have been accused of yet...and they have probably heard every rendition of "you think you're so smart" that ever crossed a lip.

So, yeah, in my experience intelligent people are very into bickering and riling and being socially awkward and rude. Comes with the "gift."

 

[Hrothbern]

So let's take a look at these several million people who are IQ 150+. Sure, IQ is a useful measure of impairment, and someone as far removed from the normal range as they are, but in the opposite direction, is being taken care of in a group home. No one ever expects them to be normal, or act normal. Because they aren't normal. And kids can smell not normal. Maybe nobody could ever put their finger on it, but just about every one of those millions of people grew up knowing there was something just not quite right about them, because there was no shortage of people telling them so. Schools aren't made for them. They learn too fast, too easily. That bothers the other kids, and maybe the teachers who remember working so much harder. They probably inherited the trait, so they probably have at least one if not two misfit parents at home who have their own problems. At some point they think that maybe "playing dumb" will help them fit in, and find out that getting caught playing dumb makes them guilty of the worst act of arrogance they have been accused of yet...and they have probably heard every rendition of "you think you're so smart" that ever crossed a lip.

So, yeah, in my experience intelligent people are very into bickering and riling and being socially awkward and rude. Comes with the "gift."

much truth there

But the approach high IQ people take varies.
A good secundary school friend of mine has such a very high IQ. At primary school he was bullied a lot, and he was not good at sport, and had no natural social skills. At secondary school he was part of the nerd gang and finally had some friends.
The approach he took was to be helpful to all people that respected him, just as a human, and during the examinations at school for math and natural sciences, after he finished his own in 20 minutes or so, in the remaining 30 minutes he would start to make small notes with the solutions of the questions that circulated through the class. He wrote if that was possible various different solutions to make it less easy for the teachers to suspect anything. When we had our final examen to get our secondary school diploma, he wrote for Math 1 and Math 2 a full summary, much better than the books we had. Later on he studied chemistry and math at the same time and continued as professor to be the helpful person he was.

All in all: considering the really bad, traumatising and frustrating way he was treated on the primary school, the teachers there no help at all, he had every reason to retalliate, to prove how stupid other people were, but found his way out to an accepted social position.

I guess there are many 150+ people that found also similar ways to be accepted without sacrificing their own identity.

 

[Kyriakos]

Wanna bet? My Mensa chapter is full of nitwits who love nothing better than to one up each other, and any other victim they can find. It's all about proving how intelligent you are, which in my opinion is a complete waste of time, not to mention very rude. The problem is all of these pseudo-intellectuals who populate universities and writer's workshops, thinking that they are oh-so-brilliant, and they look down their nose at Joe the plumber. I have the highest IQ in my chapter. I'm a doctor, a therapist and an educator, and I would much rather have a beer with Joe the plumber than talk to any of those self important snobs. Sorry, but I live in the real world and there are real, genuine, down to earth people out there, and they all have a voice. It may not be the voice of some elitist sounding writer or video blogger, but it deserves to be heard. Those are the people that matter.

I've mentioned this before on this forum, but IQ is only useful as a measure of intellectual impairment, not how brilliant you are.

I see that as relatively intelligent, though. Granted, i don't know from contact how mensa chapter people are, yet unfortunately - like anyone else- i have an impression of how people who think they are very intelligent are. Being relatively intelligent usually ends up to one being a jerk, but that is a far cry from being someone of notably higher intelligence. Our forum, like the rest of the world, is a good testament to that -- apparently scores of posters think they are it ^^
In the end, if one is very (unusually) intelligent, good for them, yet show it by producing work of note, not by bickering. Bickering can be done by literally anyone, and doesn't require high iq.

 

[El_Machinae]

Kyr, you're conflating IQ with intelligence. There's obviously overlap, but '150' is an IQ measurement score when you're measuring IQ. You can have an entire range of personalities around that IQ. But it's just one number.

Some people will insist that being 7'6" would make you good at basketball. But it's just not enough information to actually just make that assumption.

 

[Kyriakos]

Kyr, you're conflating IQ with intelligence. There's obviously overlap, but '150' is an IQ measurement score when you're measuring IQ. You can have an entire range of personalities around that IQ. But it's just one number.

Some people will insist that being 7'6" would make you good at basketball. But it's just not enough information to actually just make that assumption.

I agree, yet i tend to (maybe wishful thinking; the opposite is worse) infer that past some point in (very) high intelligence, the person isn't a troll. Peterson is someone who phones to radio shows to make a joke about how he was just masturbating in the shower and had to stop so as to address their points. That sounds more like a legend in his own mind, not a mastermind. He is no teen either, to at least expect that he hasn't stabilized in this kind of routine.

 

[Lexicus]

Peterson is someone who phones to radio shows to make a joke about how he was just masturbating in the shower and had to stop so as to address their points. That sounds more like a legend in his own mind, not a mastermind.

As much as I basically dislike Peterson and think I would probably knock him down and kick him a few times if we met in person, that is pretty baller

 

[Kyriakos]

As much as I basically dislike Peterson and think I would probably knock him down and kick him a few times if we met in person, that is pretty baller

It is vaguely Hitchens-esque, i suppose. But i don't like trolling ^^

 

[Farm Boy]

Ok, I wasted entirely too much time on this for a guy who I know full well I'm not going to listen to at terribly much more length, but just so I understand the interplay, we can mock it up roughly. This in the neighborhood of correct?

"A bunch of stuff, but also, you can't force respect because that's not how respect works." - Jordan Peterson
"You're a bad person if you don't respect." - People who deserve respect but don't get enough of it.
"Maybe, but not everthing is worthy of respect anyways." - Peterson
"Whatever, we can pass laws that create respect, and we have." - PWDRBDGEOI
"You can force compliance, but you can't force respect, that isn't how respect works. In fact, forcing compliance in certain ways might indicate brash self superiority and hurt respect when it should have been left to grow." - Peterson
"You hate PWDRBDGEOI and hate legislation designed to protect PWDRBDGEOI!" - PWDRBDGEOI
"Hehehehe." - Fascists
"Oh yeah, and Peterson is a fascist too." - PWDRBDGEOI
"Hehehehe." - Fascists
"WTH" - Farm Boy

 

[Lexicus]

Ok, I wasted entirely too much time on this for a guy who I know full well I'm not going to listen to at terribly much more length, but just so I understand the interplay, we can mock it up roughly. This in the neighborhood of correct?

"A bunch of stuff, but also, you can't force respect because that's not how respect works." - Jordan Peterson
"You're a bad person if you don't respect." - People who deserve respect but don't get enough of it.
"Maybe, but not everthing is worthy of respect anyways." - Peterson
"Whatever, we can pass laws that create respect, and we have." - PWDRBDGEOI
"You can force compliance, but you can't force respect, that isn't how respect works. In fact, forcing compliance in certain ways might indicate brash self superiority and hurt respect when it should have been left to grow." - Peterson
"You hate PWDRBDGEOI and hate legislation designed to protect PWDRBDGEOI!" - PWDRBDGEOI
"Hehehehe." - Fascists
"Oh yeah, and Peterson is a fascist too." - PWDRBDGEOI
"Hehehehe." - Fascists
"WTH" - Farm Boy

You missed the part where Peterson refuses to call trans people by their pronouns because he's a jerk.

And let's get something else straight, if you unironically use the term 'cultural Marxist' you've basically put yourself in a Nazi box, not just a bog-standard fascist box. "Cultural Marxism" is a far-right anti-semitic conspiracy theory.

It's disappointing that Peterson's fanboys (yes, I know most of you aren't really fanboys but making excuses for him and saying "if we ignore all the horribly problematic stuff he's said, I don't see the problem" is close enough) in this thread refuse to reckon with either of these aspects of his "brand" or whatever. There are very good reasons the far right likes him. And the problems with him go way beyond the fact that the far right likes him.

 

[Kyriakos]

At least people like Dawkins made actual contributions to their field - eg influential books, which their trolling then somewhat shed some bad light on, but still the work is set to survive and be read. This Peterson guy - going from his many videos - seems to be just vain and have a microphone and be a prof of psychology -- a bad combination already.
Eg Dawkins does suck when he dabbles with philosophy (including his trolling with theological matters, which is just not intricate or consisting of non-trivial statements), but at least he has something in his own field. Peterson - from the little of his i have seen, but it is HIMSELF presenting himself in this way - seems to be trivial.

By the way, of course he isn't as trolling as professional trolling people (eg so many tv/other show talking heads), but that shouldn't be enough to view him in a positive light.

 

[El_Machinae]

You missed the part where Peterson refuses to call trans people by their pronouns because he's a jerk.

This is the problem with the echo chamber lives we live. His main objection was the institutionalization of created-words brought by legislation, and to the explosion of gender terms.

As far as I can tell, he's quite happy to use someone's preferred gender pronoun, especially if it's not insanely confusing or ultra-specific. His problem isn't that he's unclear. He's actually reasonably clear.

His problem is that fascists like him. That's, like 90%, of the problem. It's why those of the hard-left have opinions on him, despite not having listened to any of his positions (with sufficiently neutrality to pull out something useful).

When asked in September 2016 if he would comply with the request of a student to use a preferred pronoun, Peterson said "it would depend on how they asked me ... If I could detect that there was a chip on their shoulder, or that they were [asking me] with political motives, then I would probably say no ... If I could have a conversation like the one we're having now, I could probably meet them on an equal level"

It's literally the same thing I would say to someone who literally asked me to call them by their nickname at work. If the boss then passed a broad-sweeping policy that would lead to more problems than it would solve, I would object.

Keep in mind where he was in history. At the time, there were people who wanted 'xie' and 'xer' to become words, and were quite happy to use the bully pulpit to force this change. He objected. And it's not like those words are the ones that society actually decided upon ....

It's like listening to an economist in the 70s discuss their objections to 'the projects' being built for low-income people, and actually articulating proper concerns. And, helllooooo, in 2018 we know that things should have been done sooooo much differently. The dude isn't racist merely because he's pointing out inherent flaws in the model.

 

[Kyriakos]

This is the problem with the echo chamber lives we live. His main objection was the institutionalization of created-words brought by legislation, and to the explosion of gender terms.

As far as I can tell, he's quite happy to use someone's preferred gender pronoun, especially if it's not insanely confusing or ultra-specific. His problem isn't that he's unclear. He's actually reasonably clear.

His problem is that fascists like him. That's, like 90%, of the problem. It's why those of the hard-left have opinions on him, despite not having listened to any of his positions (with sufficiently neutrality to pull out something useful).



It's literally the same thing I would say to someone who literally asked me to call them by their nickname at work. If the boss then passed a broad-sweeping policy that would lead to more problems than it would solve, I would object.

Keep in mind where he was in history. At the time, there were people who wanted 'xie' and 'xer' to become words, and were quite happy to use the bully pulpit to force this change. He objected. And it's not like those words are the ones that society actually decided upon ....

It's like listening to an economist in the 70s discuss their objections to 'the projects' being built for low-income people, and actually articulating proper concerns. And, helllooooo, in 2018 we know that things should have been done sooooo much differently. The dude isn't racist merely because he's pointing out inherent flaws in the model.

I can agree that using "xie" etc as pronouns (?) is a very bad idea. But isn't Peterson sort of damaging the 'right' view he had on that specific thing, by then revealing to the world that he is pretty douchey? Ultimately those two issues are seperate, but he isn't two people, and he is the only person who is invested in how people view Jordan Peterson.
Besides, trying to stop use of such pronouns, albeit the pronouns being (imo also) a bad idea, is really a ridiculous board from which to launch oneself to relevance, no?

 

[El_Machinae]

On the conservative front, he's mostly just providing its (socially useful) immune system of fighting back against the wild diversity of non-viable liberal ideas. Liberals tend to have a bazillion changes they'd like to experiment with, and so require a process by which they're whittled into the good ones.

But, legally, he was pushing back against a terrible mandate being encoded.