Jordan B Peterson; Anyone Else Following This?

mt_dreams

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Sorry it’s not “Yes and No” - he’s not a psychiatrist, not an MD, can’t prescribe medications.
sounds like semantics. one doesn't need to sign off on the paper to be considered a drug pusher. in any case he's definitely got his phd (aka doctorate) in clinical psychology from the top school in canada, and in the past has had clinical patients.
 
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aquaman

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Why do people on here seem to like Peterson so much?

From the relatively little I have read/watched of him, he says that race is directly related to IQ and that IQ is inheritable. I haven't looked too much in to his stuff, because he disgusts me so much. How for example do you separate societal culture and environment from race? And how do you determine on supposed link to be causal, in an interconnecting web of thousands or millions of factors?

Peat has written about both of these things, and clearly disagrees. ie intelligence is not inheritable, and IQ is a poor link to intelligence, created for control (including racial control) purposes

Examples:



And from: Intelligence and metabolism

Ray Peat said:
During this time Lewis Terman was studying bright children, and wanted to disprove some of the popular stereotypes about intelligent people, and to support his ideology of white racial superiority. In 1922 he got a large grant, and sorted out about 1500 of the brightest children from a group of 250,000 in California. He and his associates then monitored them for the rest of their lives (described in Genetic Studies of Genius). His work contradicted the stereotype of bright people as being sickly or frail, but, contrary to his expectation, there was an association between maladjustment and higher I.Q.; the incidence of neurotic fatigue, anxiety, and depression increased along with the I.Q. The least bright of his group were more successful in many ways than the most bright. He didn't really confront the implications of this, though it seriously challenged his belief in a simple genetic racial superiority of physique, intellect, and character.

Ray Peat said:
I.Q. testing originated in a historical setting in which its purpose was often to establish a claim of racial superiority, or to justify sterilization or “euthanasia,” or to exclude immigrants. More recently, the tests have been used to assign students to certain career paths. Because of their use by people in power to control others, the I.Q. tests have helped to create misunderstanding of the nature of intelligence. A person's “I.Q.” now has very strong associations with the ideology of schooling as a road to financial success, rather than to enrichment of a shared mental life.

If a bad school resembles, on the intellectual level, a confining rat box, the educational isolation of Mill, Russell, and Sidis was emotionally limiting, almost like solitary confinement. Once when Willy Sidis was arrested for marching in a May Day parade, his father was able to keep him from going to prison, but Willy apparently would have preferred the real prison to life with his parents.

None of these three famous intellects was known for youthful playfulness, though playfulness is a quality that's closely associated with intelligence in mammals and birds. (Russell, however, in middle age developed many new interests, such as writing short stories, and had many new loves even in old age.) Stress early in life, such as isolation, reduces the playfulness of experimental animals. Playfulness is contagious, but so is the inability to play.
 
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mt_dreams

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Why do people on here seem to like Peterson so much?

From the relatively little I have read/watched of him, he says that race is directly related to IQ and that IQ is inheritable. I haven't looked too much in to his stuff, because he disgusts me so much. How for example do you separate societal culture and environment from race? And how do you determine on supposed link to be causal, in an interconnecting web of thousands or millions of factors?

Peat has written about both of these things, and clearly disagrees. ie intelligence is not inheritable, and IQ is a poor link to intelligence, created for control (including racial control) purposes

Examples:



And from: Intelligence and metabolism


It appears Ray it talking about how our society abuses its citizens with a worthless test. JP is more trying to make the point of intelligence throughout history. The ashkinazi's make up like a quarter of the worlds geniuses, while being only a percent of the actual population. and they've done it with systematic education upon many generations. I agree with both points.
 
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CoconutEffect

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sounds like semantics. one doesn't need to sign off on the paper to be considered a drug pusher. in any case he's definitely got his phd (aka doctorate) in clinical psychology from the top school in canada, and in the past has had clinical patients.

Yes and I was one of them before he got famous. From 4/2015 to summer 2017.

Never pushed drugs on me, not even close. In fact, he often recommended I take half the dose, if I was getting a positive response from something.

He did advocate for lithium, as did Ray, (personally over email) yes, lithium carbonate. In fact Dr. Peterson recommended orotate, and I told him that Ray Peat regarded orotates as harmful.

I didn’t really matter to Jordan, orotate vs carbonate vs SSRIs, again not his area of expertise. I was clearly bipolar and he just wanted to see me better, and my family less worried.

Aside from that he never encouraged me to take medications, that was my psychiatrist’s job as far as he was concerned.
 
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mt_dreams

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Yes and I was one of them before he got famous. From 4/2015 to summer 2017.

Never pushed drugs on me, not even close. In fact, he often recommended I take half the dose, if I got was getting a positive response from something.

He did advocate for lithium, as did Ray, (personally over email) yes, lithium carbonate. In fact Dr. Peterson recommended orotate, and I told him that Ray Peat regarded orotates as harmful.

I didn’t really matter to Jordan, orotate vs carbonate vs SSRIs, again not his area of expertise. I was clearly bipolar and he just wanted to see me better, and my family less worried.

Aside from that he never encouraged me to take medications, that was my psychiatrist’s job as far as he was concerned.

Well it appears he's pushing for it in his book. or at least pushing to try it. i can't confirm cuz I wont read the book. in any event, it looks like we both made valid points. I had a class with him way back, i was always amazed how well he articulated himself. how different was your one on one experience with him compared to how he lectures?
 

Dhair

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Yes and I was one of them before he got famous. From 4/2015 to summer 2017.

Never pushed drugs on me, not even close. In fact, he often recommended I take half the dose, if I was getting a positive response from something.

He did advocate for lithium, as did Ray, (personally over email) yes, lithium carbonate. In fact Dr. Peterson recommended orotate, and I told him that Ray Peat regarded orotates as harmful.

I didn’t really matter to Jordan, orotate vs carbonate vs SSRIs, again not his area of expertise. I was clearly bipolar and he just wanted to see me better, and my family less worried.

Aside from that he never encouraged me to take medications, that was my psychiatrist’s job as far as he was concerned.
I think we can all appreciate your experience and respect the fact that the man has helped you, but you have to understand that you clearly have a personal bias here, and it should be obvious to you why some of the things he says would set off alarm bells with the rest us here.
 
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CoconutEffect

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Well it appears he's pushing for it in his book. or at least pushing to try it. i can't confirm cuz I wont read the book. in any event, it looks like we both made valid points. I had a class with him way back, i was always amazed how well he articulated himself. how different was your one on one experience with him compared to how he lectures?

I have a life now (and a successful business) in spite of my illness, because we worked very hard on it. I had the good fortune of weekly, personal attention from a genius clinican. He helped my family too. I am forever grateful.
 
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CoconutEffect

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I think we can all appreciate your experience and respect the fact that the man has helped you, but you have to understand that you clearly have a personal bias here, and it should be obvious to you why some of the things he says would set off alarm bells with the rest us here.

Whether it’s serotonin or dopamine or oxytocin or whatever the hell it is, it’s sort of besides the point anyway isn’t it? The substance/s he speaks of is not his message. @Such_Saturation

Even if he’s wrong about the serotonin thing,

(And I told him my experience with paxil, and the serotonin syndrome, and he did not disbelieve me, quite the contrary actually)

he’s not knowingly perpetuating some biochemical falsehood for nefarious reasons. Because to draw that conclusion would be insane, right?
 

Dhair

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Whether it’s serotonin or dopamine or oxytocin or whatever the hell it is, it’s sort of besides the point anyway isn’t it? The substance/s he speaks of is not his message. @Such_Saturation

Even if he’s wrong about the serotonin thing,

(And I told him my experience with paxil, and the serotonin syndrome, and he did not disbelieve me, quite the contrary actually)

he’s not knowingly perpetuating some biochemical falsehood for nefarious reasons. Because to draw that conclusion would be insane, right?
Not as insane as you might think.
Big pharma is more insidious in its advertising schemes than most of us would like to believe. I would dismiss his comments as ignorance if he had mentioned the importance of a high serotonin state as an offhand comment, but he mentions it far too often, and speaks with great authority on the subject. It's not unreasonable for one to think this is strange or suspicious.
 

aquaman

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It appears Ray it talking about how our society abuses its citizens with a worthless test. JP is more trying to make the point of intelligence throughout history. The ashkinazi's make up like a quarter of the worlds geniuses, while being only a percent of the actual population. and they've done it with systematic education upon many generations. I agree with both points.

There's clear racist under(over?) tones from Petersen and Molyneux.

Your argument above says that it's the environment ("systematic education") that has created the "geniuses". So this would in effect agree that Race has nothing to do with IQ or intelligence, but environment does.

I'd really encourage everyone to read Ray's article on intelligence: Intelligence and metabolism

Ray clearly says:

1) IQ is not a proper measure of intelligence, so even if you could link race to IQ (which you can't singularly), it wouldn't mean anything in terms of intelligence
2) IQ (aka intelligence) is assumed inherited and fixed, which it is not:
ray peat said:
I have spoken with people in recent years who still held the idea of a fixed genetic mental potential, who believe that poor children fall behind because they are reaching their “genetic limit.” For them, the I.Q. represents an index of intrinsic quality, and is as important as distinguishing between caviar and frogs' eggs.
3) playfulness is a measure of intelligence, which is clearly ignored in all testing
etc

please read that article.
 
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CoconutEffect

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Not as insane as you might think.
Big pharma is more insidious in its advertising schemes than most of us would like to believe. I would dismiss his comments as ignorance if he had mentioned the importance of a high serotonin state as an offhand comment, but he mentions it far too often, and speaks with great authority on the subject. It's not unreasonable for one to think this is strange or suspicious.


Not as insane as you might think.
Big pharma is more insidious in its advertising schemes than most of us would like to believe. I would dismiss his comments as ignorance if he had mentioned the importance of a high serotonin state as an offhand comment, but he mentions it far too often, and speaks with great authority on the subject. It's not unreasonable for one to think this is strange or suspicious.

That big pharma colluded with and partook in the organic rise of an “obscure psychologist” to promulgate serotonin disonformation?

Seems a bit on the unlikely side.

Where then, are all the smear campaigns for the newer, faster depression treatments like TMS and Ketamine therapy?

If you listen to his University lectures and not only his political/social commentary, you’d see that this conspiracy theoroy is utterly antithetical to what Dr Peterson is about and what he stands for.

I think he pushes the serotonin theme to help make a rhetorical case, and make his book more “catchy”.

Your average intelligent person has at least a vague notion of what serotonin is, or what it has come to represent. I believe that’s what he’s trying to hone in on. I’m sure he believes everything that he says about serotonin, as @Such_Saturation put it, he’s an academic and is merely reiterating published literature.

Dr. Peterson has been very open about the intention of his new book; to reach a wider audience.

I don’t see any problem with that, at all, do you? My mother cannot understand his university lectures, but she will be able understand his book, and maybe put it to good use.
 
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Tarmander

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That big pharma colluded with and partook in the organic rise of an “obscure psychologist” to promulgate serotonin disonformation?

Seems a bit on the unlikely side.

Where then, are all the smear campaigns for the newer, faster depression treatments like TMS and Ketamine therapy?

If you listen to his University lectures and not only his political/social commentary, you’d see that this conspiracy theoroy is utterly antithetical to what Dr Peterson is about and what he stands for.

I think he pushes the serotonin theme to help make a rhetorical case, and make his book more “catchy”.

Your average intelligent person has at least a vague notion of what serotonin is, or what it has come to represent. I believe that’s what he’s trying to hone in on. I’m sure he believes everything that he says about serotonin, as @Such_Saturation put it, he’s an academic and is merely reiterating published literature.

Dr. Peterson has been very open about the intention of his new book; to reach a wider audience.

I don’t see any problem with that, at all, do you? My mother cannot understand his university lectures, but she will be able understand his book, and maybe put it to good use.

I would let it rest man. Most of the criticism of JP goes kind of like "Yeah all the stuff he says is true, but there is this one thing that is totally wrong and he therefore is not worthy of attention/money/respect/etc"

Or they read his actions as purposely malicious instead of ignorant on certain things. Really, it is just a way for people to feel smart by criticizing this wise man. In fact you would be amazed how often criticism is just so the person criticizing can feel smart. Instead of defending Peterson, challenge the criticizer to name their accomplishments, their books written, the universities where they have taught, the senate committees they have testified in front of.

I really like how you have a personal experience to share, and don't want you bogged down with trolls.
 
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CoconutEffect

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I would let it rest man. Most of the criticism of JP goes kind of like "Yeah all the stuff he says is true, but there is this one thing that is totally wrong and he therefore is not worthy of attention/money/respect/etc"

Or they read his actions as purposely malicious instead of ignorant on certain things. Really, it is just a way for people to feel smart by criticizing this wise man. In fact you would be amazed how often criticism is just so the person criticizing can feel smart. Instead of defending Peterson, challenge the criticizer to name their accomplishments, their books written, the universities where they have taught, the senate committees they have testified in front of.

I really like how you have a personal experience to share, and don't want you bogged down with trolls.
I appreciate your post!
 

lampofred

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I watched some of his lectures after seeing the large amount of praise and attention he gets on here, and not to sound reductionist, but I think much of what he says is basically a replacement for a properly functioning frontal lobe which is probably why he talks a lot about "man-childs"... He is an excellent influence (focus on responsibility instead of pleasure, act as if God exists, tell the truth, etc.) but if you have ample brain energy, you won't need to resort to "rules for life" and rigid schedules to function properly. Your frontal lobes will do it naturally.

That's also probably why more men listen to his lectures than women. Women naturally have higher levels of estrogen/progesterone/dopamine (which is why you find ADHD/autism is a mostly male disorder as opposed to a female disorder), and it's mostly the highly serotonergic men with poorly functioning frontal lobes (serotonin causes hypofrontality) that really need his lectures (which is why 90% of his audience is men, especially minorities and men who "aren't doing well").

I think that increasing brain energy (maybe via lots of caffeine) will help a lot in your daily life if you find Jordan Peterson to be extremely helpful. And I'm not saying that to attack anybody. I'm probably going to start listen to JP myself. A mere drink can't replace the words of someone who seems to be a wise and benevolent person. But increasing brain energy might supplement his guidelines very well.
 
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CoconutEffect

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I watched some of his lectures after seeing the large amount of praise and attention he gets on here, and not to sound reductionist, but I think much of what he says is basically a replacement for a properly functioning frontal lobe which is probably why he talks a lot about "man-childs"... He is an excellent influence (focus on responsibility instead of pleasure, act as if God exists, tell the truth, etc.) but if you have ample brain energy, you won't need to resort to "rules for life" and rigid schedules to function properly. Your frontal lobes will do it naturally.

That's also probably why more men listen to his lectures than women. Women naturally have higher levels of estrogen/progesterone/dopamine (which is why you find ADHD/autism is a mostly male disorder as opposed to a female disorder), and it's mostly the highly serotonergic men with poorly functioning frontal lobes (serotonin causes hypofrontality) that really need his lectures (which is why 90% of his audience is men, especially minorities and men who "aren't doing well").

I think that increasing brain energy (maybe via lots of caffeine) will help a lot in your daily life if you find Jordan Peterson to be extremely helpful. And I'm not saying that to attack anybody. I'm probably going to start listen to JP myself. A mere drink can't replace the words of someone who seems to be a wise and benevolent person. But increasing brain energy might supplement his guidelines very well.

Very interesting and my experience as well. A lot harder to be forthright, honest, organized and productive when brain energy is compromised. Wish we could get Ray and JP to speak.
 
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mt_dreams

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There's clear racist under(over?) tones from Petersen and Molyneux.

Your argument above says that it's the environment ("systematic education") that has created the "geniuses". So this would in effect agree that Race has nothing to do with IQ or intelligence, but environment does.

I'd really encourage everyone to read Ray's article on intelligence: Intelligence and metabolism

Ray clearly says:

1) IQ is not a proper measure of intelligence, so even if you could link race to IQ (which you can't singularly), it wouldn't mean anything in terms of intelligence
2) IQ (aka intelligence) is assumed inherited and fixed, which it is not:

3) playfulness is a measure of intelligence, which is clearly ignored in all testing
etc

please read that article.

there's a difference b/w societies that hold education as their top priority, and societies that are smart due to said education. I was making a point towards the former.
JP was using the iq test as a way to single out geniuses for the point he was trying to make. nowhere was he implying the iq test was the be all and end up of intelligence. Also he was not being racist, pretty sure he said most people have the same generalized intelligence. His conversation was about the super smart. before you provide more info from your guru, hopefully we can agree that we don't know what is going on with geniuses, b/c if we did, we'd be exploiting it like madd. I'll look into rereading Ray's article at some point this week, as your original quotes seemed more to do with IQ testing, which had not much in common with JP's partial theory on geniuses.
 

stevrd

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I take parts of both Peat's and Jordan's views and both resonate with me.

Jordan's material has been a real eye-opener for me. Not that I didn't know much of what he is speaking of. I did graduate college and have taken masters courses, including psychology. I loved learning about the field of psychoanalytics. I interpret his views on IQ in a different light. He has said that he has tried desperately, researching incessantly to find ways to increase IQ in humans. As he said, it turns out those "brain-training" games just makes one better at the game but it doesn't actually translate to increased IQ points. In some of his lectures he has spoken about using IQ research to pursue fields of study that produce less life stress. He clarified that he is not telling people to give up pursuing fields of study that interest them but are really hard, like engineering or medicine. It's just that for some people with lower IQs, they are going to have a much harder time getting through school, completing assignments, and take a longer time acclimating to their work in the field. I think this is a reasonable assumption to make and it is quite evident that some people are just not cut out for certain fields of study. IQ research has shown over and over that it is based on fluid intelligence, or how quickly somebody is able to pick something up. It's different that crystallized intelligence.

For example, in college, when I was taking chemistry, I had to study twice as long as some of my peers who barely took notes and studied very minimally. They just "got it" much quicker. Some of these individuals have since gone on to become chemists or doctors. There is a very real difference in fluid intelligence in individuals. Some people have a much easier time learning than others and I think in a sense, if you want to interpret it this way, Jordan can be looked at as doing something noble by telling some people to realize that they have a lower IQ, and therefore they should pursue something that they may be better at and be at a higher hierarchy in their fields. Because nobody want's to be at the low end of the totem pole in their respective field. The goal should be closer to the top. And with this comes lower lifetime stress levels/ lower cortisol over the lifespan, and also probably better health in general. I believe this is something Peat could probably resonate with, since he is very much into stress avoidance, for the most part.

Furthermore, the nature vs nurture thing can be dis-proven by the studies that have looked at adopted children being either less or more intelligent that their adopted parents. As a potentially generalization, I have observed that for white parents who adopt Asian children, the Asian children seem to be "smarter" than their white siblings, and more precocious than their adopted white parents. BTW this is not something Peterson brings up, but both from my research as well as anecdotal accounts.

But this is about as far as I go with agreeing with Peterson's thoughts on IQ. Ray Peat goes deeper.

I do agree with the idea that some of IQ is inherited; not in the sense of "genes" but more in the sense that a poor environment reinforces negative behaviors and negative health consequences, which, if not addressed during the developmental and gestational periods, will be thus passed on to the child. There is a good deal of research that shows that children can either improve or regress in intelligence from one generation to the next, irrespective of the intelligence of the parents.

One of my favorite Peat quotes goes something like "when an organism adapts to a poor environment, it's functional capacity decreases."

This makes so much sense when one has a foundation in psychology research, with operant conditioning and "learned-helplessness." Ironically, serotonin increases learned-helplessness to an extent. But going further, if an organism adapts to a poor environment, it's in more of a survival state, hormonal dysregulation, cells take up water, muscles less relaxed, psyche is more prone to irritability and less rational thinking. The organism generally has less resources to support metabolism, and thus in less of a position to think abstractly. This can then be passed on generationally. Jordan doesn't really address this issue, unfortunately.

What I don't like is the high degree of moral absolutism going on. Much of what he is saying needs to be said, and he is helping a lot of people out. So what if he is on a keto diet? He doesn't promote it for everybody. There are a lot of things that he personally believes in that he objectively says that probably not everybody should follow. I have a lot of respect for anybody who understands the limitations of his own knowledge. It takes guts and wisdom.

I just wish I could have some time to talk to Jordan, present to him some information about hypothyroidism and decreased intelligence, maybe show him Broda Barnes' work, and how treating hypothyroidism adequately observably improves intelligence. Since hypothyroidism is an epidemic, it is no wonder why so many people are suffering from brain fog and the inability to think clearly. And it's amazing how treating thyroid disease adequately reverses that. Someone should design an IQ study, testing points before and after the treatment of hypothyroidism.
 
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lvysaur

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Yes, the alt-right gets a lot of their morals and values from the Bible.

I'm still wrapping my head around why the ruling class desires a backlash by, and is training converts to, the far right.

Is it seriously still eluding you? People get mad at minority elements, to the point that they'll accept much lower living standards in exchange for demagogic bones (which cost nothing) tossed their way.
 

lvysaur

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That's also probably why more men listen to his lectures than women. Women naturally have higher levels of estrogen/progesterone/dopamine (which is why you find ADHD/autism is a mostly male disorder as opposed to a female disorder), and it's mostly the highly serotonergic men with poorly functioning frontal lobes (serotonin causes hypofrontality) that really need his lectures (which is why 90% of his audience is men, especially minorities and men who "aren't doing well").

Another peculiarity is that men have more sloping foreheads than women, who have more perpendicular ones. I've always wondered if this was indicative of a more prominent frontal lobe in women; it certainly seems like it given their predilection to "do what they're supposed to".

As for minorities, I have no idea why you think that. Peterson is associated with the alt right, and the majority of his audience is young directionless white males.
 

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