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Old 03-21-2019, 11:49 PM   #61
xoxoxoBruce
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Originally Posted by Undertoad View Post
Times are always tough. By almost any measure, our current time is arguably the least-tough time humanity has ever experienced. Life expectancy, the end of total war, the end of scarcity.
End of scarcity if you can afford it. There's an awful lot of people who can't, which is even worse than when everyone is suffering from scarcity. Then it becomes "why me" piled on.
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Old 03-22-2019, 02:13 AM   #62
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I was kind of thinking, what good is the miracle of Modern Dentistry if you can't afford to go to the dentist? Things being better on average doesn't make it better for the people who it's not better for.
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Old 03-22-2019, 08:13 AM   #63
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What we were discussing has very little to do with that. That was an aside as an example of what tough times are in relation to history. It was meant to show that this need for meaning affects us aside from how tough things are, either in history or for any of us personally.
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Old 03-22-2019, 09:10 AM   #64
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When we were in tight tribes we were given our burden and the results of not picking it up were pretty obvious. I liked his example infrastructure and of the linemen. Those skills take some time to develop and those jobs are dangerous. People get killed every day doing the little things that keep civilization intact. It is unheralded heroism when a garbageman gets killed by a car. That loss of life is not celebrated as it should be.

The life I'm celebrating this week was that of a college biology professor. He remained inquisitive to the end. He was interested in everything and had great respect for the infrastructure of civilization. One of his passions was the canal networks. What I'm getting at is this, human suffering should not become a left right divider. (If I'm not extrapolating too much from a short video)
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Old 03-22-2019, 09:30 AM   #65
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I've been watching stuff like this lately.
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Old 03-22-2019, 09:44 AM   #66
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I would have cooked that chicken till the thigh read 180F. But that's just me.
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Old 03-22-2019, 03:42 PM   #67
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Just to add to the ridiculousness - I saw this in the news yesterday:

Dr Jordan Peterson: Cambridge University fellowship rescinded


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-47656933

Fucking ridiculous. Unless someone is advocating racial or gender-based (or any other brand of bigotry) violence or discrimination - or is known to be linked to a group or party that advocates this - or if they as an academic are perpetuating dangerous and outmoded pseudo-scientific theories (like eugenics or racial hierarchies) I do not understand why a university would rescind a fellowship.

In a university you want a multiplicity of views and academics. I could understand it if he was going to be lecturing in clinical psychology and was intent on teaching something that had been discredited or show to be harmful - at that point you absolutely shouldn't let that person become part of the faculty - but he is a) a highly respected psychology professor who, while currently operating at the fringes off his field in many ways, is nonetheless highly skilled and experienced - and b) was supposed to be collaborating on a theological course examining theological texts from a psychological perspective. If he goes in with something wild nobody gets hurt by that.

About the only rationale I could see for not allowing someone like Peterson to be a part of the university is that he has made himself too well known in the political sphere and that'snot the done thing for professors - it loses the sense of objectivity and potentially damages the balance of collegial respect between faculty and students. It'd ok to pop up in the news from time to time to discuss your field of expertise or comment on something affecting the university sector- but you don't want to be known for that as an academic.

I don't think that is what this is though. I think they have bowed to pressure from a small bunch of students who have labeled him enemy of trans-rights and poster boy for the alt right and then whipped a bunch more less informed students into a frenzy of outrage.

When I was younger the people we wanted to prevent having a public platform were actual fascists - known members of white supremacist groups (one of them had been secretly recorded at a meeting exhorting his followers - 'muslims are cockroaches - and what do we do with cockroaches?') or academics still trying to push damaging 'gay cure' ideas long after it had proven to be devastatingly harmful to most of the people who were persuaded to follow that route- that was about it ... that shit is dangerous -

Peterson isn't advocating a refusal to recognise the basic humanity of trans people, or agitating for them to be segragated off from the rest of society or anything bad - imo about LGBTQ people. He didn;t even refuse to use neutral pronouns - he refused to use a cumbersome and unintuitive list of made up pronouns that can change at any moment and carry the force of law. That doesn't make him an enemy of trans people. They should save their ire for the people who are actually advocating harmful policies and views (go picket the politician that defunds groups supporting LGBTQ at risk youth for instance)


[eta[

I think Peterson's greatest 'crime' is his unwillingness to condemn and give up on the alt-right people. Out and out fascists he has condemned thoroughly and often - but he does that thing that winds people up where he actually tries to understand the people in that milieu - who are they, why are they attracted to that philosophy, how can they be reached and drawn back towards a healthier balance? He isn't looking at them and seeing them only as their political or cultural stance - he is seeing them as human beings with complex psychologies and characters.

To quote Oprah ( I know, right?) 'both things can be true'. Someone can have good qualities (kindness, humour, bravery) and still perform terrible acts or hold deeply distasteful views. The one doesn't negate the other.

Nobody wants to understand the other side. It's all battle lines and team loyalty. You have to fly a flag - so which flag are you flying?
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Last edited by DanaC; 03-22-2019 at 04:17 PM.
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Old 03-22-2019, 06:19 PM   #68
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Beautifully put!

Peterson's other fault is not having an elevator speech. He runs deep and he's hard to take in all at once. That makes him a good target, because you can say he is anything, and people won't be able to prove otherwise.

Even after watching two Rogan casts with the guy, I was still like, I can't sum this guy up. He's so interdisciplinary, he has a lot to say about a lot of things.

Quote:
a theological course examining theological texts from a psychological perspective
I watched the first few of his biblical series. I'm a lifelong atheist/agnostic and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Religion, from a Darwinian perspective! The book of Genesis describing the coming online of human consciousness - and having wild insights that modern science proves out! I wish I had more time to put into it, because it's like going back to university and taking a course from a really good prof who tells you amazing things that change your understanding.

But I guess we don't have to go back, in order to do that. It turns out YouTube is a better school than Cambridge. Why: no fucking STUDENTS.
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Old 03-23-2019, 12:52 AM   #69
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DanaC View Post
You have to fly a flag - so which flag are you flying?
AND follow the instructions, guidelines, and limits of perspective that come with the flag.
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Old 04-11-2019, 08:58 PM   #70
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And now there is the very silly Pewdiepie vs T-Series subscriber count battle.

"Bitch lasagna" Pewd's fake rap song to focus the battle

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

Butt hurt T-Series went to court in India and forced YouTube to take down the above video in their country

They couldn't take a diss video, so they went and had it blocked! Along with "Congratulations", another diss video which Pewds made believing that T-Series had passed him (although he remains #1, probably due to bot activity).

In "Congratulations", he pointed out a bit of illegal activity that T-Series was involved with...

... and said with a wink, so sorry that the media might hold past events against them (as the media did to Pewds)

I'm not even mad at India, this is simply hilarious.
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Old 06-11-2019, 09:07 AM   #71
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That book has probably done more to bring misguided young men away from the extreme right than any of the anti-indoctrination schemes currently targeting at risk youth.
On Sunday the NYTimes, being the NYTimes, put an entirely anecdotal story on their front page claiming that YouTube radicalized a young man who watched too many right wing videos and got sucked down a hell hole

They are pushing this narrative really hard right now, and it's great for them, because they get to put non-radical people they don't agree with in their infographic, and say look, you can't watch, like Jordan Peterson, because he is not a Nazi but we're saying he's somehow right next to them.

This is now the satanic panic of the 2010s, with worried parents saying YouTube offers "gateway drugs" of youtubers who are not necessary all-in right wing but maybe they are on the edge of it

Combined with the Maza/Crowder dustup and several other old-media non-stories about YouTubers -- what we are actually seeing now is old-media striking out against YouTube and individual YouTubers, because money! Individual YouTubers are taking the news and explaining it. NYTimes and Vox don't like that, because that is supposed to be their job. It's hard for them when you notice that people are doing a better job of it than they are, and not accepting their narratives.

But, obviously, anyone can take the news and just interpret it, and some people wind up quite good at it... better than the old media, even

~

The Babylon Bee, which is The Onion of this era, is there to satirize the Times article:

YouTube Is Radicalizing Members Of The Right And Left To Have Actual Conversations

...which was a phenomenon you could actually see in the Times anecdote: this "radicalized" guy was also watching intellectual dark web and lefty videos by the end of his radicalization

Like The Onion used to, the Bee has a better sense of it than the Times.
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Old 06-11-2019, 12:24 PM   #72
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Very interesting.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
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There's only so much punishment a man can take in pursuit of punani. - Sundae
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Old 06-16-2019, 01:03 PM   #73
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The Straight Pipes

New car test drives and reviews. They're quite goofy, but present info in a watchable manner.
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Old 09-22-2019, 10:39 AM   #74
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Can't possibly be legit... OR CAN IT????

From the About: "Join us for inter-species psychic life readings by Pearl, the ascended squirrel, along with the entertaining and informative series on Proper Opossum Care..."

9 years' worth of opossum content!!! Is she self-aware? Is she nuts? How could she not be legit after 9 years??
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Old 09-22-2019, 10:50 AM   #75
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That is the biggest opossum I've ever seen performing on YouTube.
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