Meta: can we please keep this sub on the topic of rationalists? There
already is r/EnoughPetersonSpam, which rather fulfills the quota of
getting enough Peterson spam.
Nope, they're all exactly as terrible in context. You can tell, because if there was any context that improved one of the quotes you'd have shared that instead of leaving things vague. No one ever complains about being taken out of context if there's real defense of their words, they just give the actual defense.
When you've watched hours and hours of Peterson videos, I imagine the sunk cost fallacy comes into play.
"I wouldn't have wasted all that time on something that's not special; clearly, his detractors are just cherry-picking things that only true fans are capable of understanding in their proper context."
The same thing happens with people who spent dozens of hours they'll never get back reading The Sequences.
> You can tell, because if there was any context that improved one of the quotes you'd have shared that instead of leaving things vague.
im not defending because it isn't worth the time. if people really wanted the context they would go get it but instead they choose to remain ignorant and take in the ragebait.
the facts are on the internet for anyone to explore for themselves instead of circlejerking to muslim peterson rage porn.
If you read the context you can find out for yourself, it is ok though you are not trying to seek the truth just sneer.
If it mattered this would be called truthclub not sneer club
> If it mattered this would be called truthclub not sneer club
It is your fault for wandering into a sub named SneerClub. Nobody here was like heeyyyyy let's invite Maketotablabla to the partyyyyyy!
What exactly is the 'context' that makes "Obviously female choice can be forcibly overcome. But if the choosiness wasn't there then rape would be unnecessary." sound less repugnant?
"Context" is a magic incantation that makes everything you say well reasoned and supported by evidence. If you don't understand that it's because you're an ESS JAY DOUBLE U
Wait, I thought "context" was the unscientific weasel word that Social Justice Warlocks use to derail perfectly innocent highly decoupled conversations about certain datasets.
The context was someone claiming that the fact that 2% of the world population was descended from Genghis Khan proved that female sexual selection isn't real or important. His reply was as follows:
> Also, the fact that women can be raped hardly constitutes an argument against female sexual selection. Obviously female choice can be forcibly overcome. But if the choosiness wasn't there (as in the case of chimpanzees) then rape would be unnecessary. Read David Buss on female sexual selection.
His point is clearly that among humans, unlike among chimpanzees, women choose their sexual partners carefully, and that if this wasn't the case Genghis wouldn't have needed a massive horde to leave the number of descendants he did. Perhaps he could have phrased it better, but it's standard evolutionary psychology, not rape advocacy.
I'm stealing that line about the "Galileo Defense", along with the other one from a while ago, "this guy thinks he's Galileo but he is actually the Pope"
Try this out for size:
"If evolutionary biology is a soft science, then evolutionary psychology is its flabby underbelly."
Who said it? The answer will [SHOCK YOU!](http://www2.asa3.org/archive/evolution/200004/0012.html)
Incidentally, with respect to his comments about "historical science", I can't recommend enough Adrian Currie's new book *Rock, Bone, and Ruin*. I also can't recommend him enough. He is a lovely drinking banjo-loving man.
Currie does a very clever thing by identifying a distinction between "mere" historical traces and "fragile systems" which, under certain conditions, are more predictive than is generally expected. I recommend it. It is extremely good.
The word "necessary" is doing an awful lot of work there, dude. It says a lot that he doesn't seem to feel the need to add any moral qualifications, and it's bad evolutionary science, too. Evolution has no goals or desires, and hence nothing is really "necessary."
Well yes, evolution is not *teleological*, but many philosophers and evolutionary biologists agree that we can talk about it *teleonomically*. That is, as if it has a purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleonomy
This is like the distinction between natural and artificial. Of course, in a certain sense everything is natural, but it is pragmatic to distinguish between the world before and after human intervention. If you agree that science is done by humans for humans, perhaps I can also persuade you that it is fact useful for evolutionary biologists to think about & discuss the evolution of the eye *as though* its purpose is to see, given our human limitations. This is what Peterson did, as evolutionary psychologist. I will grant, however, that this can sometimes be problematic (as in this case) and I don't think there is anything wrong with demanding that evolutionary psychologists be careful not to sound like they are endorsing abhorrent behaviors like rape even when merely subjecting them to cold evolutionary analysis.
I'm kind of weirded out by your description of Peterson as an evolutionary psychologist. As far as I know he's done no research into evolutionary processes of any kind, beyond, you know, the personal hobby-horse thing. Certainly nothing formal.
You may be right. However, Peterson's shtick is that Nietzsche and Jung's ideas have an evolutionary basis. I didn't write *as an* evolutionary psychologist but *as* evolutionary psychologist, as evolutionary psychology is merely a subfield of psychology proper. I am fine with a professor of psychology making it part of his toolkit. Whether Peterson has applied it correctly is another question, but evolutionary psychology has hardly attained independence as a field.
That's reasonablish, but my further concern is that to suggest he's made it a part of his "toolkit" is mistaken. It implies a level of depth and serious study which Peterson has not only not demonstrated, but worse, has indicated that he doesn't possess. His rigour in identifying evolutionary mechanisms is sub-Gad Saad
Dude, three of my female friends have been raped. Two of them had their parents tell them they had it coming. This goes a lot fucking deeper than "problematic." People who understand the scope and severity of sexual assault, people who really care, do not use cold-blooded words like "problematic." I'm not saying that you, or Peterson, are pro-rape, but it's not hard to see how that kind of attitude gives cover to too many rapists who are already going unpunished. And it shouldn't be hard to see how people who think rape is an abomination are going to look at rhetoric like this, and see that there's no allyship here.
No joke; Peterson is actually pretty popular with muslim conservatives. His pro-gender segregation videos have been translated into Arabic.
Meta: can we please keep this sub on the topic of rationalists? There already is r/EnoughPetersonSpam, which rather fulfills the quota of getting enough Peterson spam.
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