[switchbak]

I'm a few minutes into Big Joel's takedown and ... it's pretty unimpressive. He's moreso complaining that psychology isn't a hard science, and that it's hard to make objectively proven statements about things like attachment theory as it relates early childhood development to later relationships.

Well, yes, and this is more or less where we're at with Psychology (as I understand it, I'm definitely a lay person): it's hard to make a concrete proof with something as complex as a human.

And Alain's ideas as expressed are certainly not purely his invention - this is pretty mainstream Psychology / Therapy, and borrows a lot from ancient philosophy (with even a dash of Buddhist psychology thrown in).

Specific to this issue: Alain is saying that many times underlying frustrations are not so much about the here and now, but can be related to one's early upbringing and point to frustrations - especially attachment frustrations - from that age. I find that an interesting idea, but it's certainly not ground truth. Nor does it mean that you can't be frustrated with a partner for valid reasons in the present moment. The kind of takedown that Joel makes ("reductive nonsense") is unsophisticated and frankly immature, and certainly not worthy of any more investment of my time.

Edit: typo

[haswell]

> The kind of takedown that Joel makes ("reductive nonsense") is unsophisticated and frankly immature, and certainly not worthy of any more investment of my time.

This is what immediately struck me when I started watching the video.

It could be possible that everything Joel is saying is true, and yet, his presentation style comes from a place that feels like the opposite of good faith. His attitude is not one that seems to involve seeking truth/understanding, and he comes across as snarky, bitter, and with an undercurrent of some underlying agenda.

It's a style that I dislike generally, but it seems especially problematic given the subject matter - a topic that requires at least an inkling of intellectual curiosity to explore.

[tablespoon]

> It could be possible that everything Joel is saying is true, and yet, his presentation style comes from a place that feels like the opposite of good faith. His attitude is not one that seems to involve seeking truth/understanding, and he comes across as snarky, bitter, and with an undercurrent of some underlying agenda.

Yeah, just looking at the titles of his other videos it's pretty clear that's almost certainly what he's doing. It looks like he frequently makes stuff in the genre of "let's hate that otherside thing you hate, and together feel superior for hating it."

[noufalibrahim]

I used to watch Alain's videos for a while (back when marginalian was brain pickings).

I think his project is more or less the same Sam Harris' - to extract useful (for some definition) ideas out of traditional religious or other moral systems and to secularise them for modern consumption as part of a project to improve humanity. My background and experience with this kind of thing makes me think that it's a doomed project and slick videos on YouTube is a poor way of teaching these things.