Truth Discussion Time - Page 33

I like JP a lot because he is very articulate and his speech delivery is captivating with emotion and I agree perhaps his ideas arent the most complex we've seen, "he is not the hero we deserve, but the one we need".

We need a voice that is clear and credible to put the collectivism ideology in check, and one that isnt a troll or a follower of another ideology themselves like Yiannopolous et al.

His views on religion are wrong and under Bertrand Shaw's views would be intellectually dishonest, but even so its still very worth to hear.


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About Bernie Sanders I think he represented the same than Trump in the sense of a change and no-intervention foreign policy, but in reality all he was for was left policies that the budget cannot afford like free education etc, what the US need is somebody to scale down the state not somebody to keep the aging machine going distributing money differently.

Re: "THE BOOKS THAT EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE ALREADY READ."

I just feel like getting 10 or so out there to get the ball rolling

Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Notes from the Underground - Dostoevsky
The Idiot - Dostoevsky
The Gay Science - Nietzsche
Human All too Human - Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra - Nietzsche (in that order)
The Death of Ivan Illych - Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Confessions - Tolstoy

I'm going more than 10

Luzhin's Defense - Nabokov (great gateway Nabokov especially for games players. Was the first Nabokov I read)
Money - Martin Amis
London Field's - Martin Amis
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Becket
Being and Nothingness - Jean Paul Sartre

I suppose that is a decent shat out list. and I am missing:

Plato - Republic
Kant - Metaphysics of Morals
John Rawls - Theory of Justice

I am hungry and thirsty and suffocating for some more.

On May 16 2017 05:58 Baalim wrote: I like JP a lot because he is very articulate and his speech delivery is captivating with emotion and I agree perhaps his ideas arent the most complex we've seen, "he is not the hero we deserve, but the one we need". We need a voice that is clear and credible to put the collectivism ideology in check, and one that isnt a troll or a follower of another ideology themselves like Yiannopolous et al. His views on religion are wrong and under Bertrand Shaw's views would be intellectually dishonest, but even so its still very worth to hear. ----------- About Bernie Sanders I think he represented the same than Trump in the sense of a change and no-intervention foreign policy, but in reality all he was for was left policies that the budget cannot afford like free education etc, what the US need is somebody to scale down the state not somebody to keep the aging machine going distributing money differently.

I would love to see Bernie debate a legit anarchist. I was mostly pleased with Bernie's position on money in politics, lobbying, how campaigns are allowed to be run, etc. Better healthcare, serving the suffering was not realistic but I think he would have moved it in the right direction. Free education I think we need heros like JP that are helping with that. We need the neo-Marxists and anarchists to work together. I think in the future there will be better candidates. We needed Bernie but it was not time yet. There will be more and more people more awake. JP is helping with that. I really wish there could be a strong, charismatic anarchist that emerges. Stronger atheists. Just people to get some attractive, truthful messages across. We should all read "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell.

On May 16 2017 05:58 Baalim wrote: I like JP a lot because he is very articulate and his speech delivery is captivating with emotion and I agree perhaps his ideas arent the most complex we've seen, "he is not the hero we deserve, but the one we need".

“The soul of wit may become the very body of untruth. However elegant and memorable, brevity can never, in the nature of things, do justice to all the facts of a complex situation. On such a theme one can be brief only by omission and simplification. Omission and simplification help us to understand - but help us, in many cases, to understand the wrong thing; for our comprehension may be only of the abbreviator's neatly formulated notions, not of the vast, ramifying reality from which these notions have been so arbitrarily abstracted.”


- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

Truth.

Peterson is a clinical psychologist and professor. He is well read. He is gifted in communication. Great attributes for an attractive YouTube channel. There are holes. There are definitely holes. We are all flawed. Even "heroes." A lot of his work and commitment to the truth in the face of losing tenure qualifies.

"Anarchy, State, and Utopia" by Nozick is a strong position against neo-Marxism.

"End of Faith" by Sam Harris is a strong position against Peterson's bullshit. I would love to see a proper debate between Harris and Peterson on religion, atheism, and ethics. God is dead and we can create ethical systems without Christianity. Old myths and new myths alike can be valued.

My main thought is that reading JP's book list and participating in the self-authoring will improve any human's existence. I am glad he is out there although he is certainly no messiah. I wish others would step up and check JP on his bullshit like Loco has done here.

https://youtu.be/XbOeO_frzvg

Pretty good advice in that video and it's a solid reading list. There's only a problem if people treat it as a definite list of all you need to become a great thinker. You gotta also read the people who critiqued these thinkers and built upon them. They all had flaws and you can't just stop there. Again though, his sweeping rejection of Marxism seems shallow and inconsistent. If you check his reading list on his website, he ranks Brave New World as his #1 recommended book. Huxley actually revisited his work a few decades later and wrote that the sanest possible world would have 'Kropotkinesque politics' (and the prevailing philosophy would be 'High Utilitarianism').

JP isnt taking on complex philosophical subjects, most of what I've seen is him giving his view on societal phenomena through the lens of a psychoanalist and over-relies on Jungian archetypes, even when discussing about "life" he rarely goes beyond simple evolutionary pragmatism.

I think you are seeing him gaining a lot of popularity among young people and you are concerned that these people will settle for this incomplete views and hamper their growth but I dont think thats the case, I dont think he is a roadblock, but a start.

I remember JP said that he got famous because of his anti-PC stance, many right-wing young people started to listen and watch some of his videos and they sent him e-mails telling him how they started to "bash SJW" and ended up learning a lot from him, so I think this is what mostly is going to happen and that is why I like him a lot among other things.

On May 18 2017 06:32 Loco wrote: Pretty good advice in that video and it's a solid reading list. There's only a problem if people treat it as a definite list of all you need to become a great thinker. You gotta also read the people who critiqued these thinkers and built upon them. They all had flaws and you can't just stop there. Again though, his sweeping rejection of Marxism seems shallow and inconsistent. If you check his reading list on his website, he ranks Brave New World as his #1 recommended book. Huxley actually revisited his work a few decades later and wrote that the sanest possible world would have 'Kropotkinesque politics' (and the prevailing philosophy would be 'High Utilitarianism').

Any taxation past protection of rights, property, contracts is coercion, theft, and forced labor (slavery).

I do get your point though that Peterson can be hypocritical in regards to post-modernism and neo-Marxism.

On May 18 2017 07:05 Baalim wrote: JP isnt taking on complex philosophical subjects, most of what I've seen is him giving his view on societal phenomena through the lens of a psychoanalist and over-relies on Jungian archetypes, even when discussing about "life" he rarely goes beyond simple evolutionary pragmatism. I think you are seeing him gaining a lot of popularity among young people and you are concerned that these people will settle for this incomplete views and hamper their growth but I dont think thats the case, I dont think he is a roadblock, but a start. I remember JP said that he got famous because of his anti-PC stance, many right-wing young people started to listen and watch some of his videos and they sent him e-mails telling him how they started to "bash SJW" and ended up learning a lot from him, so I think this is what mostly is going to happen and that is why I like him a lot among other things.

Yeah. "Over-relies" on Jungian archetypes" lol, yes, definitely.

SJWs are running amok. They DEFINITELY need to be checked. Everyone needs to be checked.

So, I have a 12 hour car ride coming up and 0 books on tape. Any suggestions on people or podcasts or interviews I should look up?

I will probably be listening to some Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris.

Any prominent anarchist thinkers?

Other atheist thinkers?

Anyone that speaks the Truth that should be listened to?

Entertainment?

On May 18 2017 07:05 Baalim wrote: JP isnt taking on complex philosophical subjects, most of what I've seen is him giving his view on societal phenomena through the lens of a psychoanalist and over-relies on Jungian archetypes, even when discussing about "life" he rarely goes beyond simple evolutionary pragmatism. I think you are seeing him gaining a lot of popularity among young people and you are concerned that these people will settle for this incomplete views and hamper their growth but I dont think thats the case, I dont think he is a roadblock, but a start. I remember JP said that he got famous because of his anti-PC stance, many right-wing young people started to listen and watch some of his videos and they sent him e-mails telling him how they started to "bash SJW" and ended up learning a lot from him, so I think this is what mostly is going to happen and that is why I like him a lot among other things.

He has taken on complex problems. Not very many, but the problem is precisely that he over-simplifies those few. At least according to the experts in those fields. That's how he is seen currently outside of his circle of admiration. Basically the exact same situation as Sam Harris, which explains why there is such a huge overlap between both their fanbases, despite their opposing worldviews and opinions. Except Harris is considered racist (Islamophobic) and Peterson transphobic. Also Peterson seems to have more integrity than Harris.

Honestly, I don't really think he can be a roadblock for most of his viewers. It's more that this is as far as these people can go. I think the main issue is that uneducated people just use JBP as a shortcut to claim a certain identity and make sense of the world because he offers so many memorable insights and things you can say and latch on to. There are many people who think he's the greatest intellectual of our time and they just don't stop to doubt any of the positions he holds. Those are the ones that I think are in some serious trouble, not those who have watched his personality lectures or whatever and who are thinking for themselves.

well even more reason to like him, if that is truly their limit of their intellect which as you say probably is from the majority, and if those people also trend to fall into ideologies then what better than they listen and follow reasonable men instead of being acolytes for all the other harmful ideologies?

And those ninja edits are the weakest proof of lack of integrity I've seen, come on... and I am against his imperialistic views on the middle east for sure, but I understand him deleting the word ethnic to not give some reporter a good headline while the content is still the same.

In that JRE podcast JP said he did not identify as an intellectual but rather as a romantic. I don't think the problem is with JP but rather with the hordes of Pepe - Ramirez - BREXIT MAN. That quote is absurd. That dude is still probably better off attaching to JP than not. His family, society, etc. probably is as well. I would rather people watch JP youtube videos than to align their identity with "Fuck Bitches, Get Money" by Lil Wayne. I am not a Stefan Molyneux fan but JP and Sam are certainly "thinkers" and qualify as intellectuals. A lot of the world operates on youtube vides and podcasts. It is easier to operate on those mediums. From personal experience, sitting down and reading Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" is a tough one. If I am working 40 hours a week it becomes all the more daunting. There are many philosophical texts that fall into the category of not easy to read and not easy to understand. JP can be a gateway to these texts but I do think more likely it is certainly easier to not move forward. I am not sure if JP can educate on a way to move forward. For example, it seems like he just chose the Nietzsche to Jung path and obsessed on that. His main focus is revitalizing God through Jung's findings. I would like to read the guys that take the statement "God is dead" and run with it. His main focus is reading about gulags and the rest of it in Soviet Russia and that instantly makes Marxism evil somehow. This is an area where I would love to take a class or read further but I have my position in this area and am just good with it for better or for worse.

I would love to see a world where the top people in their fields and the actual intellectual heroes go on podcasts and make youtube videos. The masses may not speak that language though. I don't know. It has to start somewhere. Might as well be JP.

Marxism is awful, not in its conception but in its failure to understand basic human nature, ever heard of that story of the scorpion and the frog?

A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, they would both drown. Considering this, the frog agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When the frog asks the scorpion why, the scorpion replies that it was in its nature to do so.

Marxists are the frog, and in their idiotic attempts they have been responsible for the greatest tragedies mankind has seen.

So yes, Marxism is evil, because the greatest evil and the more dangerous one is willful ignorance.

RikD russian classics are just awful imo, the level of detail is so high, it feels like authors are just using adjectives for the sake of usage, but no other purpose. And I simply cannot be impressed by the topics as my country has been influenced by Russia's culture for the past 150 years. I haven't read Dostoevsky, only Tolstoy... didn't have the desire to even try Dostoevsky out after Anna Karenina, which is one of the few books I wish I didn't lose my time upon.

Western european and american classics are just pure genius though, Wilde, Dickens, Bronte sisters, Kafka ( my head still hurts when I try to assimilate some of his writings ), Margaret Mitchel, Salinger ( many modern authors and scientist even claim that he s the best author to ever be born... I still dont fully understand his work to appreciate it even closely to that level I guess ) and those are just on the top of my head.... all of those have written books that could be life changing for a person. And I do not make such statement lightly



@Baal I agree with your conclusions, but not with the way you reached them. Human nature is something quite wide to define, there are many specters. What Marxism tries is to put all humans into one and shape them in such a manner. I'm guessing that theoretically you could develop such generations in an isolated area. I can see how such society could develop if one or two whole generations have the beliefs that everyone is truly equal, has equal chances and opportunities and serves a specific purpose. I just don't see how it could ever be put in practice as a reality. Its as plausible as world peace or the two are actually connected when I think about it

On May 18 2017 16:25 RiKD wrote: So, I have a 12 hour car ride coming up and 0 books on tape. Any suggestions on people or podcasts or interviews I should look up? I will probably be listening to some Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. Any prominent anarchist thinkers? Other atheist thinkers? Anyone that speaks the Truth that should be listened to? Entertainment?

It's super controversial but I'd highly recommend Harris's podcast with Charles Murray if it's not too late. The science of genetics is definitely not keeping pace with social mores as far as I can tell, and at least for me it makes for pretty compelling discussion.

The concept of "free will" as we know it might be complete bullshit, which is equal parts terrifying and fascinating.
Direct link here, if you're a reader of Mother Jones or Vox I'd recommend ignoring their summaries and just listening. Media outlets tend to have a very un-charitable slant with regards to the things he discusses imo.

On May 19 2017 22:33 Spitfiree wrote: RikD russian classics are just awful imo, the level of detail is so high, it feels like authors are just using adjectives for the sake of usage, but no other purpose. And I simply cannot be impressed by the topics as my country has been influenced by Russia's culture for the past 150 years. I haven't read Dostoevsky, only Tolstoy... didn't have the desire to even try Dostoevsky out after Anna Karenina, which is one of the few books I wish I didn't lose my time upon. Western european and american classics are just pure genius though, Wilde, Dickens, Bronte sisters, Kafka ( my head still hurts when I try to assimilate some of his writings ), Margaret Mitchel, Salinger ( many modern authors and scientist even claim that he s the best author to ever be born... I still dont fully understand his work to appreciate it even closely to that level I guess ) and those are just on the top of my head.... all of those have written books that could be life changing for a person. And I do not make such statement lightly

I don't know if this is going to be a fruitful conversation: "Anna Karenina" is probably my favorite piece of literature ever created.

I will say I don't think it is wise to judge all Russian classics based off of one novel (which you are probably not doing but I wrote it anyway). I will always suggest someone try "Notes from the Underground" by Dostoevsky or "The Overcoat" or "Dead Souls" by Gogol.

I love Kafka. "The Metamorphosis" is a ... I don't even have words for its art. Monstrous is what I was thinking but it doesn't quite cover it. Wilde is great. Dickens too. Don't really know the others. I never read "Catcher on the Rye."

On May 20 2017 03:13 nolan wrote: Show nested quote + On May 18 2017 16:25 RiKD wrote: So, I have a 12 hour car ride coming up and 0 books on tape. Any suggestions on people or podcasts or interviews I should look up? I will probably be listening to some Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. Any prominent anarchist thinkers? Other atheist thinkers? Anyone that speaks the Truth that should be listened to? Entertainment? It's super controversial but I'd highly recommend Harris's podcast with Charles Murray if it's not too late. The science of genetics is definitely not keeping pace with social mores as far as I can tell, and at least for me it makes for pretty compelling discussion. The concept of "free will" as we know it might be complete bullshit, which is equal parts terrifying and fascinating. Direct link here, if you're a reader of Mother Jones or Vox I'd recommend ignoring their summaries and just listening. Media outlets tend to have a very un-charitable slant with regards to the things he discusses imo.

Thanks for the suggestion. It passed some of the time today very well. Nothing really springs to mind that I want to discuss at the moment. A lot of the controversy just sounded like a case of people are stupid. I liked the talk a lot more when they got into ethics and politics.

On May 19 2017 21:29 Baalim wrote: Marxism is awful, not in its conception but in its failure to understand basic human nature, ever heard of that story of the scorpion and the frog? Show nested quote + A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, they would both drown. Considering this, the frog agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When the frog asks the scorpion why, the scorpion replies that it was in its nature to do so. Marxists are the frog, and in their idiotic attempts they have been responsible for the greatest tragedies mankind has seen. So yes, Marxism is evil, because the greatest evil and the more dangerous one is willful ignorance.

I think this is mostly nonsense, and by your own definition, evil. (you're a smart, well read guy, so I can only assume that your ignorance is willful. ) If you wrote communism instead I'd have little issue with your post, but any of the tragedies of Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao had very little to do with the policies Marx advocated or predicted. I think there's quite a lot of truth to the idea that unfettered capitalism coupled with greed (which I assume you consider part of human nature - I think there are plenty indigenous people who go against this theory though) will lead to worker exploitation, and sometimes revolution. And I think the most successful countries in the world took elements from this analysis and worked to combat worker exploitation (strengthened unions) while implementing policies that actively distribute wealth from the top to the lower societal classes.