Jordan Peterson

[Kyriakos]

6 foot 1 is around the 90th percentile for men's height in the US.

I don't care; i am 1.72 metres, which seems to be 5,64 6 foot 1 sucks/is too tall/not cute ^_^

 

[Bootstoots]

Height matters too, to the point where the NFL actively discriminates most of its positions based on that (exceptions for positions like kicker), in addition the NBA for obvious reasons. NFL does have a few short players at WR/CB/S/RB but even these are relatively rare. Considering height is a genetic trait, it's interesting that his particular form of discrimination-linked-to-performance is still widely considered to be okay, whereas most discrimination is more controversial even if a link to performance is demonstrated.

The thing about this is that plenty of people who have no reason to discriminate based on height still do. The average CEO is 6' 2", four inches taller than the average for American men. Studies conducted on male height show an average ~2%/inch wage premium for simply being taller, despite the fact that height is irrelevant for most jobs. If this is true, a 5' 5" man would be on average paid 20% less than a 6' 3" man, a difference as large as the gender wage gap itself.

So there's an axis of discrimination that is real, but which very few people care about. I'm 5' 6" but wouldn't join an anti-heightism movement either. This could be rolled into physical attractiveness more generally, which has a substantial effect on life outcomes.

Cognitive ability at least does have something to do with most jobs, but nobody "earned" their IQ (among other aspects of their cognition) any more than they "earned" their race or gender. I see big problems in creating a "meritocratic" society where only the cognitive elite have high status. It seems that the Democratic Party is pushing more for this kind of world than for a world with meaningful redistribution, and that they would be perfectly happy with a society where black transgender women with an IQ of 130 would have the same chance to become a CEO as white cisgender men with the same IQ. Of course, they'd do it all the while denying that IQ is meaningful, because "blank slate"ism allows them to live in their own just world fallacy.

It's interesting that the triad of race, gender, and sexuality get most of the attention spilled on identity issues. Some lip service is paid to socioeconomic class, but in my experience most people who think of themselves as left-wing in the US don't care as much about it (with a few stellar exceptions). Cognition, height, appearance in general, and so on don't receive much attention at all.

The real question driving us back to the thread topic is: to what extent is cognitive ability genetic? Without a very good reason, it would be foolish to assume all or none of it is. It is certainly linked to performance (even in some of these sports actually, pro level play is often complex).

The estimates on heritability of IQ from twin studies cluster around 70%, IIRC. It's pretty strongly genetic, but there's a large environmental component too, not unlike height. It does not follow from this that differences we currently see between IQ averages crudely drawn groups of people (e.g. races) are mostly genetic.

The Flynn effect, for one, points to the ability of societies as a whole to gain IQ as their activities become more thinking-oriented and abstract. Flynn wrote about a case around 1900 where someone tried to give an IQ test to Russian peasants, and found that they scored in the mentally disabled range. They were asked things like, "Bears in the Arctic are white. If you went to the Arctic and saw a bear, what color would it be?" and responded with things like "Brown. Bears are brown. Every bear I've ever heard of has been brown." They showed little ability or desire to reason in an abstract way. This is because subsistence agriculture is a highly concrete occupation, and abstract reasoning was not a skill their society had desired. Interestingly, specific interventions such as improving education don't seem to do much by themselves, but IQ has been increasing by about 2 points/decade in most modern societies regardless.

I've focused pretty heavily on IQ because it's correlated strongly with life outcomes such as income, because it's strongly heritable, because there aren't straightforward ways to intentionally increase it by much, and because it's measurable. Still, is worth noting that it measures abstract reasoning skill, which is not a measure of reasoning on concrete tasks, or creativity, or social/emotional knowledge, or the like. There's a lot more to us than just our abstract reasoning ability. It's just that abstract reasoning ability is the trait that our current society is geared around, so it's not surprising that it correlates with life outcomes.

 

[Farm Boy]

Cognition, height, appearance in general, and so on don't receive much attention at all.

Well, that's because if you buy-in correctly then you're (smart)(strong)beautiful and not to be hated*.

*Made you wait for this one @Sommerswerd , but I get around to it.

 

[inthesomeday]

It seems that the Democratic Party is pushing more for this kind of world than for a world with meaningful redistribution, and that they would be perfectly happy with a society where black transgender women with an IQ of 130 would have the same chance to become a CEO as white cisgender men with the same IQ. Of course, they'd do it all the while denying that IQ is meaningful, because "blank slate"ism allows them to live in their own just world fallacy.

It's interesting that the triad of race, gender, and sexuality get most of the attention spilled on identity issues. Some lip service is paid to socioeconomic class, but in my experience most people who think of themselves as left-wing in the US don't care as much about it (with a few stellar exceptions). Cognition, height, appearance in general, and so on don't receive much attention at all.

Interjecting as I always, quite annoyingly, do, to say that you’re thinking of liberals, not leftists

 

[luiz]

I of course already knew that height was strongly correlated to salary for men, but after reading Boots post did some more Googling and found that only 3% of CEOs in the US have less than 1.7m, and over 90% of CEOs are above the national height average. Short people have a hard time!

(I'm 1.83m and have an easy time apparently )

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, for purposes of the wordiage, I believe it goes "people who think of themselves as (left-wing)" which carries them implication that they may not be correct in that assumption. Based on whatever it is we decide to call liberals/leftists/left-wing/conservative/fash ideological phallus-waving.

 

[Bootstoots]

Interjecting as I always, quite annoyingly, do, to say that you’re thinking of liberals, not leftists

I think of them in those terms too, but our political rhetoric has so thoroughly conflated the two that I risk being misunderstood if I differentiate between liberals and leftists.

I said "the Democratic Party" and "people who think of themselves as left-wing" largely to sidestep that whole issue. People who don't care much about class but do care about other categories, and who want a "meritocracy", are liberal and not leftist. The Democratic Party is controlled mostly by liberals, although Sanders helped to focus some needed attention on the social democratic part of it.

 

[metalhead]

It's interesting that the triad of race, gender, and sexuality get most of the attention spilled on identity issues. Some lip service is paid to socioeconomic class, but in my experience most people who think of themselves as left-wing in the US don't care as much about it (with a few stellar exceptions). Cognition, height, appearance in general, and so on don't receive much attention at all.

They do if you've read your Vonnegut.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The estimates on heritability of IQ from twin studies cluster around 70%, IIRC. It's pretty strongly genetic, but there's a large environmental component too, not unlike height. It does not follow from this that differences we currently see between IQ averages crudely drawn groups of people (e.g. races) are mostly genetic.

I'm well aware. If you throw an entire population into a **** hole and this strips 30% of their potential ability on these tests, you would expect a pretty low output from that group based on the "*** hole" factor alone. Also, individual differences are pretty enormous, and you're usually looking for a person or group of people, not the entire adult population of Mali.

So there's an axis of discrimination that is real, but which very few people care about.

That's a pretty interesting tidbit though. Height is not exactly something people control nor is it predictive of performance in most professions. If the discrimination is so large, *why* do people not care as much about this kind of discrimination as compared to others? If we hold that discrimination on the basis of irrelevant factors is unethical, how is it that using some irrelevant factors generates large social stigmas while others effectively go unnoticed?

Where is the outcry over heightists, from the same groups that decry discrimination in general?

Cognition, height, appearance in general, and so on don't receive much attention at all.

Neither do quite a few potential alternative groupings of population...and considered from a logical perspective this is strange!

 

[Bootstoots]

They do if you've read your Vonnegut.

I have read my Vonnegut - not quite sure what point you're making though. Vonnegut, like most leftists who came of age before the rise of the New Left, did indeed care about social class. Player Piano keeps coming truer and truer, except that the computers are better (albeit less centralized). We've lately been seeing the rise of the inchoate anger that happens when people figure out that they're considered useless and obsolete. It's only just beginning.

I'm well aware. If you throw an entire population into a **** hole and this strips 30% of their potential ability on these tests, you would expect a pretty low output from that group based on the "*** hole" factor alone. Also, individual differences are pretty enormous, and you're usually looking for a person or group of people, not the entire adult population of Mali.

I know you know that. I'm just stating it in order to head off any scientific racism at the pass.

That's a pretty interesting tidbit though. Height is not exactly something people control nor is it predictive of performance in most professions. If the discrimination is so large, *why* do people not care as much about this kind of discrimination as compared to others? If we hold that discrimination on the basis of irrelevant factors is unethical, how is it that using some irrelevant factors generates large social stigmas while others effectively go unnoticed?

Where is the outcry over heightists, from the same groups that decry discrimination in general?

I have no idea. I get the distinct impression that such a movement wouldn't go anywhere and would just be laughed off, too. I know I wouldn't be very tempted to join it, even though I am short myself. I wonder if height discrimination is so ingrained within humans that the idea of short people demanding an increased share of power just seems silly. Maybe this was the initial reaction to suffragettes or gay rights activists though. Maybe people can only really care about a mid-single-digit number of issues like this, and heightism didn't make the cut for arbitrary reasons involving not being as well organized. I would like to see what people who spend a lot of time thinking about other forms of discrimination think about heightism, though.

 

[Kyriakos]

I never get why people would even want to be taller. To me it always seemed to mean added discomfort. Maybe because in elementary i was always so fond of being in a large house, and treating it as a labyrinth ^_^
I had various 'discussions' on this with a girl when she worked in a bookstore. She has the same height as me (tall for a girl, below average height for a boy; 1.72) so each time she would say i was short i would remind her that this means she is also short
Women are crazy, though. I wouldn't even mind being 1.65 metres, tbh. 1.72 is perfect ^_^

 

[Sommerswerd]

Well, that's because if you buy-in correctly then you're (smart)(strong)beautiful and not to be hated*.

*Made you wait for this one @Sommerswerd , but I get around to it.

Well I strongly disagree with @Bootstoots that "appearance in general doesn't receive that much attention at all"... but putting that doozy aside... my wife stated outright that she had a height requirement and education requirement, both of which I met, so I guess there's that... anecdotal, but still...

 

[Kaitzilla]

A woman! The nerve of such a creature.

Out of curiosity, how is this a rebuttal? It is a piece designed entirely to oppose an extended interview that was consented to by Jordan Peterson. It serves only to deny the author's credibility and Shapiro makes barely an effort at dispelling any falsities. Ben Shapiro wields 'bias' as a synonym for 'lie' when this is clearly untrue. Bias can and does cloud judgment but it doesn't automatically make what the person is saying incorrect.

The majority of Shapiro's 'rebuttal' can be freely dismissed because of this approach. There is no reasonable response to give to "But then we get to the full Bowles sneer session. Check out these doozies:" or any other of Shapiro's carefully crafted sentences that exist only to stoke the flame instead of actually address anything.

So let's focus on his 'corrections'.

"In Bowles’ model, then, Peterson is calling for the masculine to overcome the feminine. He is, you see, a sexist. But this ignores that Peterson’s entire ouvre is attempting to find a balance between what he describes as the ying/yang of femininity and masculinity. When he calls for young men to be better human beings – to cultivate themselves – he’s challenging them to find that which makes the masculine worthwhile."

Except, this isn't true. Peterson explicitly draws the line on what masculinity is and what femininity is. 'Finding a balance' is pretty language to cover up the sexist foundation. His viewpoint on balance is entirely determined by his viewpoint on the sexes. In his model, you can't have one without the other. They do not exist independent from one another.

More to the point, what 'makes the masculine worthwhile'? He directly says that a man will be at risk of mass murder and severe mental illness if he isn't gifted a woman to take it out on. Cleaning your room doesn't make that 'worthwhile'. Convincing your followers to commit to basic human chores isn't a groundbreaking development in the ying and yang that is the masculine and feminine.

"This is plainly untrue. He has never said that a society run as a patriarchy makes sense and stems from men’s innate competence – he has said that in a free society, free choices lead to hierarchies of competence."

Good counter. Men are naturally in power over women (due to 'competence'!), they don't do anything to enforce this discrepancy in authority. Just the way the cookie crumbles, hombre. That makes it not sexist, because... uh... let me get back to you on that...

"This is not what Peterson is saying. It’s a deliberate misconstruction, once again, of what he is saying. Peterson is saying that in a free society, there will be hierarchies; to misinterpret those hierarchies as oppressive patriarchies rather than as reflective of merit is to misguidedly ignore science."

Treating women as cattle and not granting them basic human societal rights is not what I would claim as 'science'. This is not a good argument. All these "see, but what he really meant..." retorts just go further to solidify his position as someone who operates from a position of misogyny. It is the height of pompous arrogance to represent your personal archaic views as the righteous expression of science.

There is no functional difference between "Men are in control because women are inferior" and "Men are in control and women are beneath them because of science". At the end of those paths, the result is the same: you are directly classifying women as lesser, and saying it's because of nature is gobblygook nonsense. We are not unhinged wild animals. We've given women the vote for a century and the world hasn't collapsed. Perhaps it may be possible that women aren't feeble, and arguing that they are from the hidey-hole of 'science' isn't doing you any favours?

"But then we get to Bowles’ creepiest smear: the implication that Peterson actually believes in witches."

Nope, that was not the implication. The implication was that Peterson has an incredibly disjointed way of parsing his thoughts. If he can barely offer a lucid thought on the rhetorical instance of witches and where they live, he can hardly be expected to offer a lucid thought on something as critical as reproductive rights and the place of women in society. He gets from point A to point B without much of a pattern and that is dangerous when you intentionally put yourself in a position where people look to you on how to get from point A to point B.

"This is plainly dishonest reportage. First off, Peterson is using well-established anthropological language here: “enforced monogamy” does not mean government-enforced monogamy. “Enforced monogamy” means socially-promoted, culturally-inculcated monogamy, as opposed to genetic monogamy – evolutionarily-dictated monogamy, which does exist in some species (but does not exist in humans). This distinction has been present in anthropological and scientific literature for decades."

There is little functional difference between this correction and the original interpretation when kept in context with the rest of what Peterson said. A social pressure for monogamy already exists and very clearly has no impact on this. What's more is that women are by-and-large killed by their male partners so dealing with the male killer issue by heightening the social pressures on 1x1 relationships seems illogical.

But what's being missed in this correction is that Peterson explicitly says that these men are who they are because they have been rejected by women, and that the solution is enforced monogamy. He directly says this. It's not a smear piece, it's not some random attack. He says this.

So, how do you couple "a social pressure to be monogamous" with "the solution to the Incels is enforced monogamy"? You remove the rights of women and force them to be romantically involved with these men. That's the offered solution. What else fits in this model that isn't simply white noise meant to fill the silence? How will these men gain a woman to possess -- which is the spoken solution to their woes by Peterson -- without restricting the woman's rights? We live in a society now where women can choose and Peterson directly cites this as a cause for mass murder, and that the solution is to revert to a previous state.

His compelling support in this case is that without enforced monogamy, one man has many women. Peterson lives in Toronto. There are no harems. The precedent and expectation is still monogamy. It is still one of the top dreams of people growing up: to find a significant other, to marry them, to settle down with them. This supporting argument is noise to obscure the underlying claim: that women should be restricted in who they can choose so that the undesirable men can have at least one woman to claim.

Shapiro goes on to provide an incorrect overview of what an Incel is in order to drive home his point that Bowles is some misguided feminist here to piss on Peterson.

"Men would prefer to marry conscientious and agreeable women. But repeating this obvious fact makes Peterson – you guessed it – a sexist."

How many times do you describe a desired woman as "agreeable", and why is she subservient to a man's will each of those times?

Closing thought: If someone has to constantly say "That's not what I meant" and they are in a position where the words they mean are intended to guide people, perhaps there is an issue with the person speaking those words and the viewpoints they're expressing instead of everyone except his supporters rightfully not being so keen on it all? Every time he opens his mouth, he needs to be defended. At what point does it go from "He's being misrepresented" to "Yeah, maybe he believes some pretty bad things"?

Wow, that is quite the response!

Jordan Peterson himself responded to the NYT article addressing "enforced monogamy" on his blog here:
https://jordanbpeterson.com/media/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/

The link to his blog is in the top left corner.

I agree with you that more social pressure as a solution to Incel is silly.
People who think women owe them anything are crazy.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I never get why people would even want to be taller. To me it always seemed to mean added discomfort. Maybe because in elementary i was always so fond of being in a large house, and treating it as a labyrinth ^_^
I had various 'discussions' on this with a girl when she worked in a bookstore. She has the same height as me (tall for a girl, below average height for a boy; 1.72) so each time she would say i was short i would remind her that this means she is also short
Women are crazy, though. I wouldn't even mind being 1.65 metres, tbh. 1.72 is perfect ^_^

Lots of women have height requirements for dating candidates.

 

[Kyriakos]

Thankfully something like 1% of women here are of (up to) my height anyway, so i am not missing on much ^_^

 

[Bootstoots]

Well I strongly disagree with @Bootstoots that "appearance in general doesn't receive that much attention at all"... but putting that doozy aside... my wife stated outright that she had a height requirement and education requirement, both of which I met, so I guess there's that... anecdotal, but still...

I mean it does get attention, just not from the social justice types.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I never get why people would even want to be taller.

I can think of some excellent reasons.

First of all, there are cupboards in my kitchen that are useless because I can't reach them. This apartment was built for tall people. I need the maintenance people here to change ceiling light bulbs for me, because even if I did stand on a ladder I wouldn't be able to do it properly (not that I use ladders; with my balance issues, they're unsafe).

There are other reasons, as well. There's never a clerk around when I need something from the top shelf of a store. Buying pants is a tossup as to whether something that's in my size will be the proper length or several inches too long. The seat belts on the handi-bus (public transit for disabled people) nearly choke me because they weren't designed for short people.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I mean it does get attention, just not from the social justice types.

Again, I disagree. There is a ton of outcry from "the social justice types" for "fat shaming" and other types of appearance-based discrimination/shaming.

 

[Hygro]

Again, I disagree. There is a ton of outcry from "the social justice types" for "fat shaming" and other types of appearance-based discrimination/shaming.

All these ones that have categories.

 

[inthesomeday]

Also we do care a lot about body shaming in general, discriminating against men for things like their height or genitals is heavily frowned upon not only for being messed up body shaming but also for having quite hyper masculine and often transphobic connotations.

Even the most vicious SJWs actually do fight for men’s rights and white people’s rights when it actually makes sense. The common perception otherwise tends to come from right-wing outrage that oppressed people also have a voice now.