Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 845

pleasehello said:

moviefreakedmind said:

pleasehello said:

But his main contribution, I think, has been helping young men take responsibility for their lives through his lectures and his book, which actually makes some use of his expertise in psychology.

I don’t understand how he’s helping young men take responsibility. I’ve read excerpts of his book where he tells his readers to cut off their friends because people that need help are usually exploiting you. He also says that our culture needs to allocate enough women to satisfy all the creepy men that are bitter that no one wants to fuck them. He blames sexual harassment at least in part on women wearing makeup to work. He says that men can’t deal with “crazy women” because they’re not allowed to use physical force against them, which he says is a prerequisite for respecting someone, which implies that you can’t fully respect women.

I haven’t read his book, but I’ve never heard him say any of the things you claim he’s written and I can’t imagine the book being as popular as it is if it did say those things. Can you provide a couple of excerpts?

The stuff on friendship was the only 12 Rules for Life example. The rest were from interviews. I listened a reading of that chapter so I was only able to find a few select online that illustrate the creepiness of it. Here’s a couple:

“They are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light… when you dare to aspire upwards, you reveal the inadequacy of the present, then you disturb others in the depths of their souls, where they understand their cynicism is unjustifiable.” - Jordan Peterson in reference to “bad friends”.

“But Christ himself, you might object, befriended tax-collectors and prostitutes. How dar I cast aspersions on the motives of those who are trying to help? But Christ was the archetypal perfect man. And you’re you. How do you know that your attempts to pull someone up won’t instead bring them–or you–further down?” - Jordan Peterson on why you shouldn’t be Christ-like and help the suffering.

“Maybe you are saving someone because you’re a strong, generous, well-put-together person who wants to do the right thing. But it’s also possible and, perhaps, more likely that you just want to draw attention to your inexhaustible reserves of compassion and good-will.” - Jordan Peterson on why people that want to help people are actually just selfish bastards. (I think this is the most despicable statement of his on the subject. It implies that helping people shouldn’t be done if it’s done out of an attempt to show your good-will. Maybe that’s less impressive, but you’re still helping someone.

“Before you help someone, you should find out why that person is in trouble. You shouldn’t merely assume that he or she is a noble victim of unjust circumstances and exploitation. It’s the most unlikely explanation, not the most probable,” - Jordan Peterson on why you shouldn’t help the lowly peasants (This might be the most despicable of his quotes, actually). - more:
“It is far more likely that a given individual has just decided to reject the path upward, because of its difficulty. Perhaps that should even be your default assumption, when faced with such a situation.” What an elitist asshole.

One more:

“Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world’s injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your own missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and to live.” - Jordan Peterson’s version of “Let them eat cake!” That statement sounds so creepy. No wonder one of his critics likened his writing to motivation for school shooters (which is a reason why he’s suing that critic, by the way; so much for free speech).

I don’t even like calling him an expert because, as you pointed out, he either ignorantly or fraudulently misuses words all the time. Everyone’s a nihilist to him, or post-modernist, or a neo-Marxist, or some other term that he’s using completely dishonestly. He conflates nihilism and post-modernism all the fucking time and he seems to believe that post-modernism is inherently communistic, which is the most imbecilic take on the term I’ve ever heard. He has no understanding of recent human history. He claims that Nazism was an atheist and anti-theist doctrine, which is an abject lie, and he seems to think that the U.S.'s behavior during the Cold War was justifiable if no humanitarian, which is incredibly absurd. Those are just my problems with his dishonesty, I could write a whole book about all the problems I have with his self-help philosophy.

I do think he has some interesting insights into psychology, but the rest I agree are kind of inane ramblings.

Maybe. I admittedly haven’t read his stuff on psychology other than what bounces in and out of other things he’s said or written.

pleasehello said:

“In federally regulated workplaces, services, accommodation, and other areas covered by the CHRA, it will constrain unwanted, persistent behaviour (physical or verbal) that offends or humiliates individuals on the basis of their gender identity or expression.”

Wait, so maybe I wasn’t completely off-base. The CBA seems to take a broader interpretation of the law that I would oppose. I don’t think we need laws to protect people from being humiliated or offended. Am I reading that correctly?

It only protects them from being persistently humiliated or offended by federally regulated outlets on the basis of gender identity or expression. It has nothing to do with the speech or expression of any individual Canadian.

“The distinction between the expression of repugnant ideas and expression which exposes groups to hatred is crucial to understanding the proper application of hate speech prohibitions. Hate speech legislation is not aimed at discouraging repugnant or offensive ideas. It does not, for example, prohibit expression which debates the merits of reducing the rights of vulnerable groups in society. It only restricts the use of expression exposing them to hatred as a part of that debate. It does not target the ideas, but their mode of expression in public and the effect that this mode of expression may have.”

And I really don’t see the distinction they are trying to make here. It’s okay to express hateful views, but if a member of a protected class is exposed to those hateful views, then it’s not okay? This seems vague and confused.

It is too vague. I think they’re implying calls for genocide, calls for violence, or things of that nature. Either way, that’s a problem with hate speech laws in general, not C-16.

Jay said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Jay said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Arch-hypocrite pseudo-intellectual Jordan Peterson sues university over comments made in private by employees of the university “in order to make academics more careful about what they say about him.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-laurier-university-asks-court-to-dismiss-jordan-peterson-lawsuit/

What a litigious, hypocritical fraud. For those of you that don’t know, Jordan Peterson’s claim to fame is that he pretended that his freedom of speech was under attack, even though he was never fired, disciplined, or censored in any way by his university.

Peterson’s lawsuit against the university is legitimate. The university’s employees attempted to intimidate and punish Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate student and TA, for showing a clip of a Peterson lecture (with whom she hardly agrees on anything, by the way) during her class. The university employees lied about having received complaints from students when they had received none and told Shepherd she was propagating hate speech. Thankfully, Shepherd recorded the entire exchange and it’s probably the only reason she’s still a student there.

The university deserves to be sued and their employees fired for being liars who tried to push an agenda, damage a student’s reputation, and label Peterson as an extremist with hateful views.

The only thing this situation has to do with free speech is Lindsay’s right to show a Peterson clip during her own class, upon which her university infringed. Peterson is suing to protect his character and reputation, which is valid.

She did play the clip and was brought into a meeting with professors who went against the university policy and she faced no disciplinary action from the university. In fact, the university condemned the meeting and defended her. How is that grounds for a lawsuit against the university? How are private comments that someone else made public comparing Peterson to Hitler, as ludicrous as that is, in any legal way “slander”?

What disciplinary action did those professors receive from the university?

I don’t know. Should they be fired immediately regardless of whatever accomplishments that they have to their names? I don’t think anyone should be fired over this. I think they should be told and expected to never shirk the proper way of reporting things they suspect are improper. I guess that’s all the university can reasonably do. The university defended Lindsay Shephard, as it should have. What more can they do?

Legally, I suppose it isn’t slander.

It objectively isn’t. Peterson even admits that he isn’t suing on the grounds of slander which is defined as making a false statement damaging to a person’s reputation. (There’s also no way that someone thinking and privately claiming that the controversy of using a Peterson video is comparable to a Hitler video can possibly be construed as an objectively false statement that intentionally damages a person’s reputation; it’s just a stupid opinion held by a private citizen on a public figure.) He says he’s suing to make sure that it has a chilling effect on other professors that hold those opinions about him, which he made clear in this statement, “I’m hoping that the combination of lawsuits will be enough to convince careless university professors and administrators blinded by their own ideology to be much more circumspect in their actions and their words.”

What if this were a private conversation where some white professors referred to a black professor using a racist slur and a third party made the comments public? Would you defend the group because the conversation was private?

I didn’t defend the group or their conversation. I think they were wrong and stupid, but I don’t think they should be fired over this or otherwise have their careers severely impacted. Calling another professor a racial slur is much different because it demonstrates that they value people based on immutable characteristics and is harmful to that coworker and all coworkers or students of that race, which those professors have control and authority over. So that’s a ludicrous hypothetical. I didn’t know that Jordan Peterson’s stupid ideas were immutable characteristics. If I, in private, say that Jordan Peterson is a misogynist from hell, or an idiot, or an overgrown school-shooter, that’s not the same as calling some professor the n-word because he’s black. Also, it isn’t like these people work with Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson is a public figure that these people have never met. Imagine if you got sued by every “leftist wacko” that you think is taking over the world.

Peterson’s, and every other Canadian’s, free speech was under attack by the “pronoun law”. There’s nothing pretend about it and it had nothing to do with the university where he teaches.

I referenced this already, but here’s that claim being debunked:

https://www.cba.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=be34d5a4-8850-40a0-beea-432eeb762d7f

“The amendment to the CHRA will not compel the speech of private citizens. Nor will it hamper the
evolution of academic debates about sex and gender, race and ethnicity, nature and culture, and other
genuine and continuing inquiries that mark our common quest for understanding of the human condition.
The amendment will, however, make explicit the existing requirement for the federal government and
federally regulated providers of goods and services to ensure that personal information, like sex or
gender, is collected only for legitimate purposes and not used to perpetuate discrimination or undermine
privacy rights. In federally regulated workplaces, services, accommodation, and other areas covered by
the CHRA, it will constrain unwanted, persistent behaviour (physical or verbal) that offends or humiliates
individuals on the basis of their gender identity or expression.” - Canadian Bar Association

How in the hell, is that a violation of anyone’s free speech?

EDIT: I mentioned the connection to his university because he claimed that his university would use C-16 (which you inaccurately call the “pronoun law”) to deplatform him, which obviously never happened.

For every analysis that says C-16 is harmless, there’s one that says it isn’t.

The analysis that I provided is from people that actually know what they’re talking about. That doesn’t mean they’re automatically right, but they at least have some credibility on the issue. Care to provide me with an opposing assessment rather than vaguely referencing its existence? Do I just have to take your word for it? Am I supposed to go look for it and hope that it’s one of the analyses you’re talking about and present it as the alternative view that I’m arguing against? Are all sources equally credible? I can find you plenty of people that say 9/11 was an inside job too, probably one for every source you throw at me that says it isn’t. Does that mean that their take on the attacks holds equal weight to a historian or journalist that studied what actually happened? Of course not.

I called it the “pronoun law” because it’s sometimes referenced that way.

Yes, it’s referred to that way by people that are oversimplifying the issue.

I understand it’s not literally about pronouns, but it has the potential to be used to defend their use and punish those who mis-gender.

How?

All I know is that activism is slowly replacing reason on the left and seeing what it’s doing to the tech community right now is enough to make me leery of any law that encourages more of it.

More vague generalizations with absolutely no clear evidence or examples to back it up. Notice how I actually provide concrete examples in my posts? When I talk about how awful Jordan Peterson is I quote him and reference his work. I try to do this whenever I make claims in this thread, and though I don’t always do that well, it’s something that I try to do. You should start doing stuff like that because I don’t even know how to respond to any of this. It’s just “some people say this, some people say that. This vague thing is happening. That vague thing is happening.” It’s a waste of everyone’s time. Not because I disagree but because it doesn’t say anything. It’s just a vague statement that no one can relate to because we don’t even know what the problem is. What’s happening in the tech industry? Are people getting fired for voting Republican? Are they being forced to participate in gender-reassignment activities? Are they being forced to renounce God? What’s happening? How are we supposed to respond to “what it’s doing to the tech community right now” when you don’t even tell us?

flametitan said:

moviefreakedmind said:

It is too vague. I think they’re implying calls for genocide, calls for violence, or things of that nature. Either way, that’s a problem with hate speech laws in general, not C-16.

My understanding for why it’s vague is that if it’s well defined, it becomes easier to loophole either as prosecution or defendant. The law is worded such the way it is so that a judge and Jury can determine whether or not a particular incident falls under hate speech without having to set precedent.

I get that, but I think that laws need to be as specific as possible.

Old news:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2017/07/19/john-mccain-blood-clot-james-comey-hearing/485937001/

New news:

Trump holds an official press conference today for the first time in over a year and a half.

Watch this press conference for about five minutes to see the connection… but it’s not for the faint of heart.

EDIT: Nevermind, he’s totally not gibbering uncontrollably on live TV. He is so stable and undeniably connected to reality that he should sit down and do that interview with Mueller right now. Right. Now.

Jay said:

moviefreakedmind said:

More vague generalizations with absolutely no clear evidence or examples to back it up. Notice how I actually provide concrete examples in my posts? When I talk about how awful Jordan Peterson is I quote him and reference his work. I try to do this whenever I make claims in this thread, and though I don’t always do that well, it’s something that I try to do. You should start doing stuff like that because I don’t even know how to respond to any of this. It’s just “some people say this, some people say that. This vague thing is happening. That vague thing is happening.” It’s a waste of everyone’s time. Not because I disagree but because it doesn’t say anything. It’s just a vague statement that no one can relate to because we don’t even know what the problem is. What’s happening in the tech industry? Are people getting fired for voting Republican? Are they being forced to participate in gender-reassignment activities? Are they being forced to renounce God? What’s happening? How are we supposed to respond to “what it’s doing to the tech community right now” when you don’t even tell us?

You get combative, complain I’m ignoring you, then make baseless accusations when I do engage that demonstrate you either didn’t read or simply disregarded what I posted earlier.

You disregard my points all the time. You just did it again. You ignored my points just made on Peterson’s lawsuit as well as the questions I posed to you about that situation. You instead zeroed in on this so you could play the victim again. You’ve done that many times and I’m used it, but it’s still pretty annoying to have a point go ignored in favor of this kind of shit.

What’s the point of reading these walls of text?

I don’t know. You abandoned the thread under this same pretense a while back.

Read the several paragraphs I posted about the Linux CoC pages ago. That’s real and it’s happening now.

I looked back at it and I agree with you. That’s horrible. You know why it’s happening, though? Because the feelings and opinions of regular people have been granted legitimacy because of social media. If these companies would just say “Go fuck yourself” every time a person brought up an old tweet demanding that somebody be fired, then we wouldn’t have this problem. You even mentioned James Gunn yourself, which is proof that this phenomenon isn’t unique to one side of the spectrum or the other nor is it unique to the tech industry. The outrage mob is a natural result of caring about everyone’s thoughts and feelings, which is something I’m opposed to. See? We can kind of agree on something. By the way, how is this much different than wanting those professors fired for their crazy opinions on Jordan Peterson?

Read again about Damore. But as you said in your response to that incident, it happened a whole year ago so I guess it’s not relevant anymore.

Watch the Google company meeting video where senior management expresses their sadness and concern, to the point of tears in some cases, that Hillary lost the election. This is a company meeting where anyone in attendance who is conservative certainly had views that would not have been welcome during that discussion. Tell me after watching it that Damore’s memo was handled fairly.

Read something other than traditional media outlets if you want to know these things.

What, like InfoWars? I read a variety of media outlets. I’ve made that clear many times. Here’s some reading I did on Google’s firing of people for talking about controversial subjects. Turns our Damore isn’t the only one and liberals are also reprimanded and fired for equally shitty reasons. Given that your sympathies are only directed towards those on the right, I’m not surprised that you aren’t familiar with this, but here’s some interesting coverage of that:

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/02/google-fired-and-disciplined-employees-for-speaking-out-about-diversity/

Is Gizmodo part of the globalist, leftist agenda? Is this article fake news? Is it too “traditional” for you? (By the way, what do you even mean by “traditional media outlets”?)

My take on this is that the Google services, like all massive, monopolistic corporations, need to be nationalized. Then first amendment protections would apply to their platforms as well as their hiring and firing practices. That’s my solution to this problem. What’s yours?

I’m happy to share what I know and discover to a certain degree, but you’re responsible for your own knowledge. Take what you’ve been given and use a damn search engine if you care to know more. You shouldn’t rely upon what you read on a forum any more than I do.

Of course I’m responsible for my own knowledge. I’m certainly not going to rely on you of all people to educate me, but it’s obnoxious having a conversation with someone that doesn’t back up their claims most of the time. It’s really hard to even know what they’re specifically talking about most of the time.

Oh, that was it? That’s definitely not as bad as I thought if that’s the case. I’ll need to look into it more.

Ben Shapiro = paid fraud:

https://thinkprogress.org/ben-shapiro-paul-manafort-rick-gates-robert-mueller-special-counsel-plea-agreement-documents-d4fc04a51e60/

Here’s how it seems to be going down tomorrow. They are actually going to try to go for confirmation on schedule. No withdrawal, no three-day delay for FBI investigation of newly-revealed materials. Full steam ahead.

We have several people now with stories of Kav engaging in sexual assault, with varying degrees of witnesses, evidence that the stories were shared years ago (not just invented for this confirmation), sworn affidavits, and so on. And Kav perjuring himself at every opportunity doesn’t help his case. He couldn’t even manage a fluff interview on Fox without verifiably lying about his underage drinking.

They can’t turn any of that off, but they can increase the noise in an attempt to drown out the signal. Now suddenly at the last minute, in addition to these women with plausible stories, corroboration, and names, it looks like we suddenly have a new raft of even more sensational stories–but anonymous this time, with no paper trail, no names, no nothing, and trivial to simply deny. And two men have volunteered to the committee that they assaulted Dr. Ford instead of Kav (because not only could that mistaken identity thing be for real, but being assaulted by two guys makes it un-possible to be assaulted by a third…it’s a little-known medical fact, and, oh yeah, people jump up and confess to sexual assault all the time when they’re not even under suspicion). Presumably, the idea is to have the bulk of the hearing’s time devoted to unsubstantiated phantom assaults everyone knows didn’t happen, hoping that the other ones with witnesses and corroboration become less believable by association. Or maybe they’ll run out of time before they have the chance to discuss them at all.

It’s brutally cynical and transparent. And it can work because it doesn’t even have to convince a single person. It just allows the Senators to say with a straight face after-the-fact “Who could possibly have known four of the seventeen assaults discussed at the hearing were for real? Most of them seemed so farfetched, so we voted to confirm.” It also shows who’s driving this, and how desperately they want it–if more than one Republican Senator steps out of line and this vote fails, you can bet they’re getting primaried and worse. And it’s just bizarre–there are tons of extremely conservative justices who wouldn’t have any assaults in their background–the Senate just confirmed one last year for crying out loud. No, it’s not just any super-conservative judge Trump wants, because he could (and did) get that quite easily. It’s Kavanaugh in particular he wants, and he’s pulling out all the stops to make sure it happens, public opinion and midterms be damned.

I can’t see this strategy sitting at all well with Murkowski, so I think she’s a “No” vote at this point. But there’d have to be another, and I don’t think my second-choice candidate Flake will do it, so it squeaks by.

Jay said:

All I know is that activism is slowly replacing reason on the left

While that may be true, activism has already replaced reason on the right. Both sides demonizing each other and glorifying themselves, as though either side has a monopoly on reason, to the detriment of reason itself.

Consider that Rush and Hannity cater exclusively to the right and have done so for a long time; and how many on the right are quick to defame Obama or Hillary, but are extremely hesitant, or flat out refuse, to oppose Trump’s views or actions (except in secret) now that he’s the president.

Warbler said:

CatBus said:

Here’s how it seems to be going down tomorrow. They are actually going to try to go for confirmation on schedule. No withdrawal, no three-day delay for FBI investigation of newly-revealed materials. Full steam ahead.

We have several people now with stories of Kav engaging in sexual assault, with varying degrees of witnesses, evidence that the stories were shared years ago (not just invented for this confirmation), sworn affidavits, and so on. And Kav perjuring himself at every opportunity doesn’t help his case. He couldn’t even manage a fluff interview on Fox without verifiably lying about his underage drinking.

They can’t turn any of that off, but they can increase the noise in an attempt to drown out the signal. Now suddenly at the last minute, in addition to these women with plausible stories, corroboration, and names, it looks like we suddenly have a new raft of even more sensational stories–but anonymous this time, with no paper trail, no names, no nothing, and trivial to simply deny. And two men have volunteered to the committee that they assaulted Dr. Ford instead of Kav (because not only could that mistaken identity thing be for real, but being assaulted by two guys makes it un-possible to be assaulted by a third…it’s a little-known medical fact, and, oh yeah, people jump up and confess to sexual assault all the time when they’re not even under suspicion). Presumably, the idea is to have the bulk of the hearing’s time devoted to unsubstantiated phantom assaults everyone knows didn’t happen, hoping that the other ones with witnesses and corroboration become less believable by association. Or maybe they’ll run out of time before they have the chance to discuss them at all.

It’s brutally cynical and transparent. And it can work because it doesn’t even have to convince a single person. It just allows the Senators to say with a straight face after-the-fact “Who could possibly have known four of the seventeen assaults discussed at the hearing were for real? Most of them seemed so farfetched, so we voted to confirm.” It also shows who’s driving this, and how desperately they want it–if more than one Republican Senator steps out of line and this vote fails, you can bet they’re getting primaried and worse.

Primaried?

That means the party will try to get them to lose the next primary election by supporting a different candidate that supports status quo party views. Voting against the party has a potential consequence of the party throwing its money behind someone else and you lose your job.

Warbler said:

They probably want to push this now because who knows how much more difficult it may be if they have to start over again and maybe try to confirm a conservative after the election.

They have plenty of time to confirm a conservative before the election (especially if they keep with the rushed schedules), and they can even confirm a conservative AFTER the election but before the new Senators are seated (oh, we lost our majority in the election? so sad, let’s confirm!). And either way, pretty much every most likely Senate projection shows Republicans gaining seats this cycle, which will make confirmations even easier for the next two years.