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

[LordLoveADuck]

One point he raises in regards to his dead-naming Eliot Page on twitter is the fact that Page's dead-name is on all the movie credits Page did before transitioning. This is an excellent point.Why are those credits allowed to remain?

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!

@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 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.

@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.

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.

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.

bottom three and a half billion

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

This is an utterly ridiculous view.

Page did the film as Ellen, so they're not going to change it, why would they? Ellen did the film.

He's a transphobe for dead naming and he deserves his ban.

Yes, but that doesn't matter to what he's saying. If he wanted behavioural analogies he's not choose any sea creatures I'd imagine, certainly not primitive ones. He's just saying that human behaviour is based on chemical structures that predate us being human, we aren't going to escape them. It would be like trying to escape the influence of amino acids.

It's a response to the idea that we could remake human behaviour through politics and social conditioning to be perfectly egalitarian so that we don't have to have any social conflicts at all. He is saying for that to work we would have to materially change what it is to be a living human being.

Yes, but that doesn't matter to what he's saying. If he wanted behavioural analogies he's not choose any sea creatures I'd imagine, certainly not primitive ones. He's just saying that human behaviour is based on chemical structures that predate us being human, we aren't going to escape them. It would be like trying to escape the influence of amino acids.

That's true, of course. The point is that some of the primitive sea creatures which also share those biological building blocks don't have power hierarchies, and the ones both we and lobsters share as an 'ancestor' is far too primitive to have anything like that at all. The point is that power hierarchies in humans and in lobsters were created by evolutionary paths and what lobsters do is not necessarily going to increase our understanding of human power hierarchies.

So what those shared chemical building blocks mean is less clear than what he'd like to argue.

I personally don't think that we can completely dispense with power hierarchies, but we can certainly try to ground them on something different than inherited wealth or threat of physical violence or even simple gender stereotypes.

Voting for leaders is one way to try to keep the powerful in politics accountable to the masses, choosing people for high-level jobs with tests, formal qualifications etc. is another, and creating various balancing mechanisms (such safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults) also helps. But all those must ultimately be based on democracy and the institutions of democracy.

I don't think his goal was really to offer insight into power hierarchies in human beings but to say they are biologically rooted at a chemical level.

I think he's a pretty big fan of democracy as a way to mitigate certain kinds of exercise of power.

Because those credits accurately reflect Elliot Page’s identity at the time. Also, it’s clear Jordan Peterson’s just being pedantic. He knows nothing about Page beyond the news he’s skimmed and is not appropriately qualified to judge her mental capacity since they are not paired as a doctor and client.

When Peterson became Dr. Peterson, I’m sure his previous school records were not corrected to say “Dr.” Now that he’s a doctor, though, it would be inaccurate to describe him as anything else unless his license is revoked. If someone accused Peterson of not having a doctorate and lying about his doctorate, Peterson could sue this accuser for libel or slander because that is not an accurate statement (like calling Page by his dead name and feigning wonder over why Page’s dead name remains on past movies).

Let’s be real: Peterson’s being a transphobic horror toward Page by acting as though gender reassignment surgery is mutilation when all surgery is mutilation. Anyone could describe cataract surgery in menacing detail.

While Peterson makes some logical points about the flaws of wokeism, I still find him petty and largely illogical. I remember an interview where he agreed to call an alt-right trans woman, Theryn Meyers, by her preferred name and pronouns, but he in that same interview, he can’t seem to understand that as a professor he ought to use the preferred name and pronouns his students request? Here’s the link: m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=kasiov0ytEc&feature=emb_logo

If I were responding to Peterson, I’d say classes are meant to be safe for students to learn, so invalidating a student’s identity amounts to bullying and harassment and is not conducive to healthy learning. As Peterson should well know, freedom of speech (or freedom of expression as it’s called in Canada) doesn’t exist as fully in unis as it does in wider society. Professors agree to a code of conduct when they’re employed. Upon accepting their assignment, professors agree to forego certain freedoms they’re otherwise entitled to as citizens.

I can’t remember what else I disagree with (vaguely I remember finding his assessment of gender roles for children unimpressive), but on the whole, I find him arrogant, obnoxious, and hateful. He’s celebrated by many men, and some conservative women I’ve known, so he’s not very oppressed because of his beliefs. I will admit that there’s a culture of fear right now where his logical points sometimes are hard to utter in classrooms, but I find him just as self-righteous and ridiculous as the woke left he disdains.

I'm surprised you write that Peterson has not given an indication as to what level of stratification is to be expected. Here is his 'The Principle of Unequal Distribution' from 12 Rules of Life - An Antidote to Chaos:

The Principle of Unequal Distribution

When a defeated lobster regains its courage and dares to fight again it is more likely to lose again than you would predict, statistically, from a tally of its previous fights. Its victorious opponent, on the other hand, is more likely to win. 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 as the bottom 50 percent [11] — and where the richest eighty-five people have as much as the bottom three and a half billion.

That same brutal principle of unequal distribution applies outside the financial domain — indeed, anywhere that creative production is required. The majority of scientific papers are published by a very small group of scientists. A tiny proportion of musicians produces almost all the recorded commercial music. Just a handful of authors sell all the books. A million and a half separately titled books (!) sell each year in the US. However, only five hundred of these sell more than a hundred thousand copies. [12] Similarly, just four classical composers (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky) wrote almost all the music played by modern orchestras. Bach, for his part, composed so prolifically that it would take decades of work merely to hand-copy his scores, yet only a small fraction of this prodigious output is commonly performed. The same thing applies to the output of the other three members of this group of hyper dominant composers: only a small fraction of their work is still widely played. Thus, a small fraction of the music composed by a small fraction of all the classical composers who have ever composed makes up almost all the classical music that the world knows and loves.

This principle is sometimes known as Price’s law, after Derek J. de Solla Price, [13] the researcher who discovered its application in science in 1963. It can be modelled using an approximately L-shaped graph, with number of people on the vertical axis, and productivity or resources on the horizontal. The basic principle had been discovered much earlier. Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), an Italian polymath, noticed its applicability to wealth distribution in the early twentieth century, and it appears true for every society ever studied, regardless of governmental form. It also applies to the population of cities (a very small number have almost all the people), the mass of heavenly bodies (a very small number hoard all the matter), and the frequency of words in a language (90 percent of communication occurs using just 500 words), among many other things. Sometimes it is known as the Matthew Principle (Matthew 25:29), derived from what might be the harshest statement ever attributed to Christ: “to those who have everything, more will be given; from those who have nothing, everything will be taken.”

There is so much there to unpick, but I'll stick to discussing wealth. He argues that the same neurochemical mechanisms that create unequal territorial distributions in lobsters are the same mechanisms that create the unequal distribution of wealth in human societies. But he has not provided enough evidence to make that claim. One way he could support his claim would be to provide statistical evidence that the distribution of the areas of lobster territories is the same (to some high degree of confidence) as the distribution of human wealth. He hasn't done the work. It's intellectually lazy. That is why I find his claim to be unconvincing and unscientific. Taleb's alternative theory (see my previous posts) based on economic mechanisms of investment and accumulation of wealth has a better mathematical basis.

There is much to admire in Peterson's stance on academic freedom, and his attempts to maintain standards of rigour in the precise use of language. But I find him exasperating when he makes pseudo-scientific claims that aren't backed up by evidence. Perhaps I'm unfairly singling Peterson out here as he is such a prominent public intellectual. I'm critical of much that passes for logic and evidence in the social "sciences".

He argues that the same neurochemical mechanisms that create unequal territorial distributions in lobsters are the same mechanisms that create the unequal distribution of wealth in human societies.

I don't think the bit you've quoted argues this, though? Isn't he just saying 'like lobster society, human society also has an unequal distribution of resources' and then goes on the discuss that distribution? He's not making the argument that this distribution is based on the neurochemical mechanisms that we share with lobsters - I mean, he might do that elsewhere, I don't know? But not in what you've quoted. I agree he's pointing to evolutionary and biological factors to explain some of the ways that societies are organised but I don't think he's arguing that we are no different than lobsters.