No fan of Jordan Peterson but his response to twitter "banning" him is excellent.

The article I linked to gives examples of other primitive marine creatures which do not have similar power hierarchies but do share the same chemical building blocks. As lobsters are not social animals choosing them is not the most informative choice, given that humans are social animals.

Thanks beastly. Taylor Swift - I know what you mean I was so pleased when she stood up for herself over that arse-groping a few years ago, it was a great example for my daughters I thought.

That's such a good question, socksup. I don't know the answer... There are LOADS of amazing women with 'mum' qualities but they don't seem to have the same impact. I'd love someone like Taylor Swift (slightly obsessed, sorry!) to play this kind of role. I feel like it would have to be someone deeply cool. But then the moment she said anything sensible, she would immediately become deeply uncool!

FWIW I do think Peterson has a good influence on young women too and does talk a lot of sense about how they can meet decent men, what to do in terms of career and babies and so on.

Is there an analogue of JP, a woman who writes for women, who has the same effects on women's self esteem?
I keep hearing that JP has done wonders for lost young men. what about women (young or otherwise) who have lost their way? especially lost their way with various forms of online addiction and the gender-bollocks that can come with that.

the internet was a weird and scary place for young people before, but over the pandemic as everyone moved home and online, I think it's worse. Real life meetings (college etc) are effectively optional and so some people are just staring at a screen all day. "you're not a boy, you just need meaningful work and some vitamin D" from a non-mum-endorsed source could be very much needed

But he doesn't say that lobster societies are similar to human societies.

He said that they have the same chemical building blocks, as do other animals including mammals, and they shape behaviour in all of them.

It's not like he's using it as a proof either, we know that those same chemicals relate to human behaviours even if we knew nothing about lobsters.

The only reason to use lobsters as an example is because they are in fact so different and primitive. Using something more similar wouldn't help to emphasize that.

I've understood him in this as basically saying that there will always be stratification around things like resources. I've not had the impression that he has given an indication as to what level of stratification is "normal" or that he doesn't think it can be tweaked in various ways.

One of the things I think that sometimes becomes important is to make sure, in looking at what someone says, that we have a good sense of what question or concern they are trying to address. One of Peterson's big concerns is the idea that there can be equality of outcome between groups or individuals, because he thinks in trying to achieve that it would require basically suppression at a high level. So to me, what he's trying to say is, again, we know there will always be some people who have more and some who have less.

He's also talked regularly about the fact that a huge difference between the rich and poor destabilizes society and are a bad thing, and that it's often one of the pre-conditions of social breakdown, so I think he is aware that it can happen, and he thinks we should take measures to avoid that.

In other words, dominance hierarchies developed separately in lobster societies and human societies so the former might not give us much information about the latter, and other marine animals that Peterson could have used as examples don't have similar hierarchies but do live in groups.

I'd go further and say none of them is a good fit because of the role that money plays in human hierarchies. For example there is no lower animal parallel for investing e.g. having shares in companies where (one hopes) thousands of employees are working to make you richer, or shares in trackers and other funds which are even more diversified and dependent on the successful efforts of millions of people. Re-investment of profits produces an amplifying feedback effect. Buying and selling investments to rebalance a portfolio can maintain geographic and sector diversity of assets. Other animals are not able to accumulate such a distributed and diverse array of transferable resources.

Additionally there is the assistance of technology in human societies.
Which also reminds me there may be people like say Stephen Hawking who are playing a different game in other hierarchies almost orthogonal to that in which most people perceive their success.

This article (from four years ago) is by a marine biologist responding to Peterson's use of lobsters as something similar to human societies.

The author shows that there are many other marine animals we could analyse if we wish to draw parallels to the human society and lobsters might not be the best fit as they are rather solitary animals except when dating and we are not solitary animals, and as our evolutionary path diverged from lobsters' path at an earlier stage when it was unlikely that dominance hierarchies of any kind existed.

In other words, dominance hierarchies developed separately in lobster societies and human societies so the former might not give us much information about the latter, and other marine animals that Peterson could have used as examples don't have similar hierarchies but do live in groups.

What do you mean, he doesn't support women? He supports the women in his life - is that not enough?

I don’t think women should support him as he doesn’t support us.

bottom three and a half billion

Take just one of Peterson's claims which stretches credebilty by extrapolating from examples of the territorial competition of lobsters and songbirds, the pecking order of chickens (he compares the "communal" living of chickens to suburbanites). "It's winner-take-all in the lobster world, just as it is in human societies, where the top 1 percent have as much loot at the bottom 50 percent - and where the richest eighty-five people have as much as the bottom and a half billion." So there Peterson makes an analogy between the distribution of money amoung humans and distribution of territory amoung lobsters. If that analogy stands up then the top 1 percent of lobsters would have as much territory as the bottom 50 percent. I doubt there is such huge disparity in lobster territories.

That doesn't even scratch the surface of the complexity of human societies where there are charities, welfare systems, education, legal systems, religions, political movements, written knowledge passed down from previous generation, means of passively earning wealth. There is a lot more complexity here than anyone can fully explain.

An alternative explanation of what former quant Nassim Taleb would describe as the Mandelbrotian distribution of wealth in humans is that it is a consequence of feedback effects in economic markets. I think Taleb's explanation makes more mathematical sense, but again, given the complexity of the situation, it is not quite the whole story.

Exactly. I think the basic 'lobsters! How ridiculous' commentary is just easy knee jerkism by people who only want to investigate what he is saying on a superficial level.

His conversations with Joe Rogan and Camille Paglia are excellent, they ask and respond to questions with sincerity and you get a better and more comprehensive distillation of his thoughts on various subjects.

@MangyInseam Thanks for explaining that so simply, the lobster thing is thrown at him all the time and I haven't got around to reading his book yet.
It makes perfect sense. The idea that everything is socially constructed is bonkers. Biology matters.

I really don't get why people think the lobster stuff is so pseudo-scientific? It's probably some of the most materially based stuff he says, which is that the same chemical-biological basis for behaviour exists in humans right down to the lowest animals. He's basically saying that the idea that social hierarchies are somehow externalities or imposed from outside is simply false, and political schemes that take that view are starting from a foundation of sand. If we don't accept that certain things like dominance hierarchies will continue to appear in human behaviour we won't ever come up with effective ways to manage ourselves.

@LadyAnnabelsTapestries He is highly intelligent and he asks pertinent questions. His excellent rhetorical skills disarm me and I find him superficially dazzling. But when, with my slow pedestrian mind, I examine his arguments I often find them unconvincing: there are too many gaps and unsubstantiated leaps. From a scientific perspective he seems neither logical or brilliant.

I think he's mostly very logical too, though like everyone, he has some blind spots. I'd say I'm somewhat of a 'fan' (although that's the wrong word - I'm only really an actual fan of Taylor Swift - who I'm sure I wouldn't agree with about anything political at all!) I've found JBP's self-help books really helpful. I like his message of taking personal responsibility and especially how he targets young men. I don't agree with all his ideas and arguments, but I think he's very sincere and thoughtful. I also really like to see him with his family - he is clearly a very good husband, father and grandfather.

I'm not sorry he's kicked off twitter. It's a horrible cesspool and brings out the worst in everyone, including JBP. But of course it's very illogical and unjust that he should be kicked off for 'deadnaming' an actor whose 'deadname' is still everywhere!

I find everything he says pretty logical. He's a brilliant mind.

Peterson makes an excellent point about how avoiding deadnaming makes it impossible to accurately make some historical statements about Page.

This is similar to the points put forward in the UCLAN guidance the other day. Twitter went ballistic with the abuse thrown at it. Much 'get that pride flag out of your bio now' wailing and gnashing of teeth. Yet all they were asking for was an acceptance of actual facts. Many people just can't (and won't) understand that (seeing it as literal violence etc)

Peterson is exasperating. He can think and express himself very precisely, but then he lapses into pseudo-scientific lobster potty psychology, or attacking some phantom strawman conflation of various combinations of woke/Marxist/trans/feminist/Muslim ideologies.

🤣 so much this!

I know what he's trying to say with the lobsters but it's so simplistic it's almost offensive to lobsters.

Sorry I did not mean impossible to say, but convoluted or clunky.

Peterson makes an excellent point about how avoiding deadnaming makes it impossible to accurately make some historical statements about Page.
He nicely parodies the Kafkaesque quality of twitter's requirement to accept guilt for an offence without knowing exactly what he is supposed to have done.

Peterson does not explain why he called the physician who performed Page's breast removal a criminal.

He goes off on a rant about woke Marxists. I can't see how this has anything to do with Marx.

Peterson is exasperating. He can think and express himself very precisely, but then he lapses into pseudo-scientific lobster potty psychology, or attacking some phantom strawman conflation of various combinations of woke/Marxist/trans/feminist/Muslim ideologies.

Elliot pre transition had significant roles in the x men too.

I agree with what he says there. It's not like you can't still watch the film Juno. It's still out there.

And good point, why couldn't Elliot still be proud of what was achieved before finding their true self.