Non-Americans Who Think Peat's Voice Sounds Weird, Let Me Explain

[sugar daddy]

oh Westside don't be a nincompoop

 

[montmorency]

Goodness Westie, he's only about 10 years older than me, and you make him sound like a museum piece.
(OK, well, maybe I'm one as well, but anyway...).

Of course we can recognise his slightly old (or older) fashioned way of talking, indicating a pre-war / wartime upbringing. It adds to his charm IMO.

But that's not why his voice sounds "funny". We non-Americans have long been exposed to American voices of all generations. Before the internet was television and before television were films. We know that mannerisms of speech change over time. Compare FDR with Obama, for example.

I know a lot of people in their seventies personally, and most of them don't have that "catch" in their voice that Ray has. I sometimes wonder if it's a result of experimenting with hormones over the years.

 

[Sheik]

Do you ever notice how when someone makes an assertion or says "This is how it is, right?", Peat gets nervous? It's because he is afraid he will have to make a judgement which might upset the other person. He always wants to offer his most accurate views. And as we all know, that upsets some people because they're attached to their ideas. Ray is not that kind of person. He doesn't really attach to ideas; he's always willing to reevaluate.

People don't like to hear they're wrong, and Ray is anticipating that he might have to flat out reject their statement because he doesn't want to bull**** anyone.

The crackling is due to tension in his voice because he is nervous. And he's more nervous now than he ever was because he's older and has less strength.

 

[Such_Saturation]

:1

 

[pboy]

lol, he doesn't even sound that weird. Everyone that isn't forcing a voice has kind of a unique one. Peat is like really sensitive and is shy, and polite, that's the only reason his voice is how it is...hes caring more about its receival than him being a commander or forceful. I think its just that 'nerdy' dudes generally talk to mostly other nerdy people, and don't necessarily socialize as much growing up or with more physically confident people, don't do a lot of any sport, so they don't really develop that grounded confidence in terms of expressing in front of or to people. It doesn't sound like he has damaged vocal cords lol, maybe a slight lisp that's it, which could just be cause of his really high fluid intake. That kinda happens sometimes when you're a little hypotonic and shaky...he might benefit from more sugar in his drinks. However, his voice sounds different in most of the interviews al ittle probably its just variations of his current state

 

[narouz]

Peat doesn't "stutter."
That is a pretty specific speech "pathology."
I use that word because I know a woman
whose major area in college was SLAP:
Speech, Language, and Auditory Pathology.
And she had been a stutterer.
Also her brother.

Peat doesn't stutter.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97435/ lol, he doesn't even sound that weird.

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97436/ Peat doesn't "stutter."
Peat doesn't stutter.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Call it whatever you like

 

[cantstoppeating]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97425/
...

The crackling is due to tension in his voice because he is nervous. And he's more nervous now than he ever was because he's older and has less strength.

I guess Peat didn't get enough OJ or sugar before his interviews to lower those stress hormones. He must be crumbling under the weight of his messiah like attitude to reveal truth at the cost of upsetting the interviewer. This must explain the sound of his voice. I see now. How noble.

 

[narouz]

His voice isn't weird to me.
I very much enjoy listening to it.
I think much of what we're poking at here
has more to do with what like pboy and Sheik have talked about:
shyness, nervousness, sensitivity, etc.
And too:
remember that Peat says he likes to go all day sometimes
without talking or maybe reading--
because he says embedding routinely in that verbal way of experiencing life
diminishes the artistic, imaginative, intuitive (just read "drivel" here, cantstop )

Thus his reply when asked about being fluent in Spanish (I think it was).
He said, jokingly: "I don't think I'm fluent in any language."
My take on that was that
he often likely feels estranged from and ill-at-ease with verbal communications.

And so he doesn't display the aggressive, martial, argumentative style typified by, say, someone like Jack Webb.

 

[sctb]

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97538/ His voice isn't weird to me.
I very much enjoy listening to it.
I think much of what we're poking at here
has more to do with what like pboy and Sheik have talked about:
shyness, nervousness, sensitivity, etc.
And too:
remember that Peat says he likes to go all day sometimes
without talking or maybe reading--
because he says embedding routinely in that verbal way of experiencing life
diminishes the artistic, imaginative, intuitive (just read "drivel" here, cantstop )

Thus his reply when asked about being fluent in Spanish (I think it was).
He said, jokingly: "I don't think I'm fluent in any language."
My take on that was that
he often likely feels estranged from and ill-at-ease with verbal communications.

And so he doesn't display the aggressive, martial, argumentative style typified by, say, someone like Jack Webb.

As much as this is a tiresome topic and I'm not keen to draw
it on, narouz has expressed my sentiments exactly—thanks!

 

[charlie]

:1 I am with narouz on this one too.

A humble man indeed.

 

[Such_Saturation]

What's wrong with weird?

 

[pboy]

not scientific enough

 

[Sheik]

I guess Peat didn't get enough OJ or sugar before his interviews to lower those stress hormones. He must be crumbling under the weight of his messiah like attitude to reveal truth at the cost of upsetting the interviewer. This must explain the sound of his voice. I see now. How noble.

It really does wear on him. And honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he did have a messiah-like attitude.

 

[robertf]

Here's my .02:

It has nothing to do with nationality, it's the timbre of his voice. As a person who is near-autistically focused on the sound(s) of life I say that he most definitely sounds like a person with past trauma/ a shy kid who got beat up or there are overtones, not even overtones, but outright anxieties and a borderline stutter. This is not to place any judgement on the analysis, we all have our skeletons, but Ray's are clearly audible. Sometimes I wonder if ALL of the physical bull**** we do like foods and vitamins are not just sophisticated muscular/psychological armoring techniques. Ray has not resolved his traumas imo.

 

[XPlus]

Narouz puts it really nicely.

To reemphasise, I think Ray is on the passive side personality wise.
Those, like Narouz suggests, are the shy kind of people.
My voice goes on the sluggish side when I'm tired, don't sleep well or just stop talking to people for few days.
He sounds a little tired when he talks but that's normal considering his background.
Like many of us, Ray has been battling ill health for long.

 

[HDD]

From a few years ago:

Re: Ray Peat's voice
Unread postby peatarian » Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:40 pm

I noticed the same thing - the somehow scratchy voice. There are some comments in other forums about it. I don't think it's inappropriate to talk about it. RP himself makes fun of the way vegetarians and vegans look.

I have experienced this thing about the voice myself now. The better my metabolic rate (with lots of regular protein eating and good T3 ratio and progesterone, super temperature a.s.o.) the scratchier my voice sounds. Sometimes I sound like a boy reaching puberty.

If you listen carefully to Ray Peat you will notice that it seems like there are a million thought processes happening in his brain. It's not so much about finding words and saying them - it's more about picking one of the thoughts and choosing one the hundreds of words which would match to find the most accurate. It's not like normal verbal processes. It's more like he is trying to get some distance from his constant thinking to find the thoughts needed at this particular moment and regarding this particular question and then he describes what he sees in what he considers a simple language.

It's really like that: The more alert you are, the easier complex thinking becomes, the harder it is to express the thoughts verbally.
He says in the interview on youtube: "I don't consider myself fluent in any language." (You got to love him.)
RP spends a few days of every week without talking or reading or listening to words. He paints.

You will remember that he mentions how estrogen produces 'excited cells' in the brain, very much like cocaine, and by doing so makes us more fluent in any language. Of course only for some time and always with a high price. (He considers cocaine to be less harmful ...)

I think we are imprinted with the idea that thinking and talking have to be the same. They are not. Maybe TV gives this impression because it's hard to show how smart a character is without letting him say something intelligent. If you consider that you can read about 100 times more in the same time if you stop hearing your own voice in your head you might consider it possible that putting thoughts into words might actually slow you down.

If you try not talking for two days, not watching TV, not listening to music ... and you have enough thyroid ... you will notice the same about your voice I think and about your thinking.

 

[charlie]

HDD the quoting queen strikes again!

Now there is something to think about.......

 

[HDD]

HDD the quoting queen strikes again!

Now there is something to think about.......

Haha, Charlie! I always wanted to be the queen of something!