[danharaj]

His technical papers are fun to read and based on solid mathematics. He's collecting that work into a book which is about as poorly edited as you would expect but the math is solid. There is no sense in which Taleb is as vapid as JBP.

[mistermann]

  vapid - offering nothing that is stimulating or challenging.

I'm curious how you have evaluated JBP to be vapid, could you provide some details of your analysis?

[danharaj]

I can't prove a negative. Show me something JBP has said that is challenging and novel.

[DyslexicAtheist]

JBP is absolutely off wrt Post-Modernism. He keeps quoting Hicks' books on Postmodernism which must be dismissed as fraud[1]. (Hicks himself presents his book on white supremacist Stefan Molyeux's podcast[2]).

my problem with JBP is that he presents his ideas as facts but they are nothing more than pseudo science and cherry picking to fit his narrative (e.g. he hasn't really understood the Jungian archetypes and keeps waffling on about it with great confidence). He seems to fit very well into Alan Sokal's definition of the "intellectual imposter". (the irony here is that Sokal himself hasn't understood postmodernism lol)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHtvTGaPzF4

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkfH87CgKOQ

[ithkuil]

Whether Sokal understands postmodernism is besides the point; his hoax was more about a process rather than about an argument

[blaser-waffle]

All of those points sound like a "no true scotsman" -- e.g. "he doesn't understand REAL Postmodernism".

All Jungian psychology is pseudoscience; hell most psychology is pseudoscience outside of measurable behaviorist or cognitive approaches.

[war1025]

I feel like the thing about Jordan Peterson is the advice he offers seems pretty obvious if it's stuff you've been exposed to.

The thing people miss is there are a lot of people out there who haven't been exposed to such ideas.

I do think he got too big too fast and wasn't really ready to be a cultural icon like he became.

I think him and NN Taleb are on similar footing when it comes to the quality of their thought though. Both are interesting, but the well isn't very deep and you'll have to move on to something new before long.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

> The thing people miss is there are a lot of people out there who haven't been exposed to such ideas.

Every single idea he has is conservative orthodoxy of one kind or another. Nobody living in the Western world has been spared exposure to the ideas he is so in love with. He is just good at failing to explaining them while being as un-concise as possible.

[war1025]

> Nobody living in the Western world has been spared exposure to the ideas he is so in love with

If that were the case, he wouldn't have the massive following he does.

[ithkuil]

Over the past decades in the western world those conservative orthodoxies have been challenged and a new set of norms have emerged and are perceived as the new orthodoxies. Peterson's followers follow him because of his "guts" to speak up, but he's doesn't seem to be proposing new norms but rather showing how the conservative worldview can still offer a cure for the current pain points.

His followers follow him because he reinforces existing points of view. Nothing wrong with that, just saying that having such following doesn't imply original ideas.

I recommend the "what is true?" making sense podcast episode (https://samharris.org/podcasts/what-is-true/). It helped me better understand Peterson outside of the spotlight generated by him touching the controversial topics if our society. My opinion on him after that interview is even less flattering: he seemed interested in bending terminology and logic itself for the benefit of crafting a worldview he deems innate to humans, instead of researching our nature though inquiry. The feeling I got was that of an erudite anti-scientist.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

This piece has stuck with me (I think it's the one I'm remembering but can't read the whole thing because paywall): https://www.thestar.com/opinion/2018/05/25/i-was-jordan-pete...

In particular, the anecdote about how Peterson wanted to be a preacher.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Why not? Lots of people (not just conservatives!) like having their existing beliefs confirmed. Peterson's gift, if it can be called that, is in making conservative orthodoxy sound profound, and the fact he's a professor which helps his air of authority.

[mistermann]

> Nobody living in the Western world has been spared exposure to the ideas he is so in love with.

Where might a person acquire such knowledge? It implies that someone would have had to compile all of JP's ideas, and then compare it against the knowledge of all Westen people. That sounds like quite an undertaking.

[dvt]

I've read a couple, but I'm not a statistician, so I can't comment with any authority on his papers. For what it's worth, JBP has written more papers and is cited way more widely than Taleb. (But I'm not a psychologist either.)