In 2015/16 I also was into Jordan Peterson. I liked his lectures about psychology and found his linking this to society at large interesting. I enjoyed his insights from Nietzsche and Jung, but found the "deepness" of children stories a bit shallow. But one thing bothered me a bit back then: That was, when he bashed ideologies, he would introduce it with "like the Nazis or Communists". And further on he would focus exclusively on communism, and ignore the evil deeds from Nazis even in situations where they're the elephant in the room. I didn't see him as Nazi apologetic back then, but at least as a bit inconsistent. From his Biblical Lectures on forward, when he started to have takes on really everything, this inconsistent and self contradictory streak just intensified, and I started to ignore him (it's only YouTube who has not understood that in 7 years!). When he came on on Decoding the Gurus, they highlighted a few things that were not a red flag to me back then, but they totally made sense.

>YouTube who has not understood that in 7 years If you have a single account you login with, clicking on "don't recommend channels like this" and/or "do not recommend this channel" along with unsubbing from like-minded channels really does help. Until you watch another one of his videos out of curiosity and you have to do it again for a day or two to stop it.

Eventually. It took *years* of clicking "not interested" and "don't recommend channel" before my feed stopped being swamped with Rogan and Peterson content. Interestingly, I tried a different browser to watch a completely non-political clip on YouTube without being logged in to an account. So just a random person watching YouTube. The suggested videos on the right of the screen: Jordan fuckin Peterson. Fox News. A lecture by Peter Thiel. Unboxing reaction. Christian church video WTF?

Right!? JP and JR shorts are pushed so hard by YouTube.  What about John F. Kihlstrom? How about pushing him on everyone, youtube?

Could be the area you were in is generally served that type of "content"

New Zealand? We do have some of those nutters but nowhere near as prevalent as the US. And I think I was watching a clip about a guitar pedal. Hardly related to the far right. I can't help but suspect there's some techbro shitfuckery going on at YouTube.

For a long time I got recommended JP videos because of my interest in psychology (he's not knowledgeable about psychology. He constantly parrots debunked hypotheses). It's finally stopped but I must have been hitting "do not recommend" for a year because so many channels reupload his stuff. 

Had a similar experience with him. I can't remember the exact lecture but he was trying to make some weird argument that back then (can't remember the historic period) people were not exactly racist, they were just the majority or something like that. It was a weird way to re-define racism that either came from somebody trying to re-invent something and act like it is an original thought or just from somebody who was a bit....racist. The whole lecture was a bit strange and he was never openly racist but it did kinda sound like he had doubts that there is such thing as racism. I said this to a friend of mine who was a fan and he got really defensive with the usual "he didn't mean that" rhetoric.

I have no idea if this is related, but while I read your comment, I remembered that racism in the past centuries in Europe worked a bit differently than in America. It went more along the lines of language than of skin color. Apparently there was a Dutch person, a large caucasian man, who even as late as in the 1800s through the invention of his own "language" and "tradition" was passed through the European courts as a Japanese or some other Asian origin. He was riding a wave of orientalism in a society that had no idea of how different people can look.

Interesting. Racism is definitely not something that can be a catch term for all types os discrimination or past wrong doings. I guess what surprised me with Peterson is how he was so determined to prove that racism doesn't exactly exist.

There was rampant xenophobia in the ancient world. There had to be because if you trusted the wrong tribe that could mean your doom. But, in everything I've read about ancient Rome I've never heard of hatred arising from the color of someones skin. A foreign culture yes, but not skin color. Slaves in ancient Rome could be any race. A roman citizen could even become a roman slave. The Ancient Roman's had their bigotry's but they didn't conceptualize race as we do.

Yes I seem to remember it was the Portuguese sometime in the 1600s or 1700s who introduced skin color as the basis for racism. Before that xenophobia wasn’t as based on skin color.

 they thought the pale skin of barbarians from the north was a sign of their inferiority

???  They thought white skin was a sign of inferiority and being a savage barbarian. 

Septimus Severus.

No, I just read VSI the roman empire (90% sure that was the book I read it in but not certain)

I think that is openly racist and we need to stop being afraid of triggering conservative snowflakes and just start calling a duck a duck. If a spin is unfair to a race of people, it is, by definition, racist. Two other examples to help illustrate this principle: 1. Trump supporters will openly admit he purposely walks the line of "not technically racist." You know what that is? Unfair to those races... therefore racist. 2. Republicans will argue "we let Democrats try X thing to help Y race and it didn't work, so while we admit the problem is still there we think we have no further obligation to care or take action". You know what that is? Unfair to those races... So racist. How else do we define openly racist other than openly quantifying a behavior or viewpoint that is racist? Does someone need to use racial slurs to solidify it?

Any efforts to include a full apology for Christianity is always going to be a failure because all it's premises are demonstrably false or stolen from elsewhere or are part of the basic laws of most socieities aka common sense functioning morality like the 10 commandments.

Maybe I’m misremembering but I thought he used the Nazis as evil examples, even going so far as to say something along the lines of “Be careful in following the herd, as you may commit evils you could only dream of. Do you think all the Nazis woke up one day and wanted to purge Jews?”

it was COVID that made me realize the right wingers are actually insane and sadly most of the people I was listening to on podcasts and following on social media were part of this group...

You’re so lucky. I burned out hard in the lock downs and your Jordans Peterson and your Jockos Willink types were the buoys I latched on to.

This only makes it more impressive that you had the self reflection and intelligence to push out of it! I don’t have much to say other than well done for doing something the vast majority of their audiences could not :)

lol I guess if more people could they’d probably change their behaviour. I look back now and can’t fathom how I even started to buy in. I’m so glad I never made any financial commitment. That would have made it much harder to snap out of it.

for me all started in my childhood because my father was and still is a massive conspiracy believer (I dont want to use harsher words). We now dont speak that often because of this... There are no bad feelings btween us but we dont actually have much to talk about now when I am not anymore in the cult

honestly I was still following some the conspiracy nuts but the war in Ukraine was the last straw for me... as a person from Eastern Europe, being way too familiar with Russia and their behavior throughout the ages, and the things they caused to my country and my people in the past... seeing the right wing nutjobs, some of which I actually respected, to actually support Putin and basically call the war fake, Zelensky a drug addict, and other similar insane things.... it was like waking up from a life long nightmare

Wow That’s so much more realistic than my experience. Solidarity

You're naming the reason I also no longer pay attention to more left outlets like the Majority Report, the Humanist Report, Secular Talk, Shaun, etc. I didn't watch Hasan, but I assumed he was on the whole probably a decent person since so many leftists were stroking him off, but then I learned his foreign policy and hold him in contempt.  Horseshoe theory is real. Tankies are real too, and they espouse the most hairbrained conspiracies and agitprop. They showed themselves when Russia invaded Ukraine, and then again after October 7th, and especially when the Houthis started commiting indiscriminate acts of piracy and they just shrugged it off.

I am a non profit healthcare worker who was at the epicenter of the North American COVID outbreak. I also work in regulatory standards with severely immunocompromised people, the sort of folks who were most at risk from COVID. Lastly, we are a research hospital, and a bunch of our resources were redirected towards COVID and vaccine research. During COVID, I suddenly had friends and relatives who have known me for DECADES, and know that I am the kind of person who is a compassionate bleeding heart who does not receive (nor am I motivated by) either large amounts of money or power, telling me I was directly involved in the most evil conspiracy ever perpetrated by human beings. Or, conversely, they believed in COVID but thought I was the most evil person ever created for caring about not killing my pediatric cancer patients and enforcing basic safety standards (like masking and required immunizations for staff) that we already had in place BEFORE COVID due to our extremely vulnerable patient population. Jordan Peterson and the guru manosphere were only slightly on my radar before Covid, but they sure as shit became a focal point for me after COVID, because they talked non stop about why my patients and the elderly and the obese deserves to die, but anyways they weren't actually dying because it was all a hoax and we actually murdered them as part of some even bigger hoax to usher in an evil new world order. Honestly I would be here all day if I listed all the horrible things they said about me and the work I do while me and my coworkers were there watching our patients die left and right. I did not put much effort into changing the minds of these people. I put in a few civil attempts at saying why these conspiracies weren't true, but they never went anywhere. But no, so am not going to maintain a friendship with someone and try and save them, when at the time it is the most stressful and awful time in my life, when I am dealing with mass casualties, when I am barely hanging on by a thread, and my supposed lifelong friends were telling me it WASN'T happening. You know who could have used support then? US!! And luckily I live in a highly educated area where conspiracy theories are less common, so I still had plenty of sane people left. But I cannot express the impact the conspiracy theories, denials, death threats, calls for our arrest and execution by these guru guys had on the mental health of myself and everyone I worked with. I and many people I knew had to go on psychiatric drugs to deal with the mental stress. It was the worst years of my life and I lost faith in humanity in a way I will never get back. I lost my human spirit and belief in human goodness that I will never get back. I now believe most people, at least in the United States, are selfish and bad. I'm genuinely glad you saw the light man, I am. But no, I am not going to patiently spend months deprogramming the very friends and family who betrayed me and had me sunk into a deep hopeless depression as they told me all the evil things I was involved in, all while I was surrounded by death and despair that was being massively exacerbated by THEIR inactions. Over a million PREVENTABLE deaths occurred in the US due to guys like Peterson and his followers, we had one of the worst responses in the entire world. MOST impoverished third world countries did leagues better than we did. They murdered over a MILLION people and they don't even care, they aren't even sorry about it! All they have done is doubled down and said it never happened! One day I hope I can forgive guys like you, I really do. But I'm not there yet. I'm sure as shit not going to help the people telling me that I am the mass murderer who deserves to be tried for crimes against humanity by the Hague. I do hope other people can, because I think it is worth bringing these people back when possible. But I know I'm never going to do so. And I really wonder if those who do get brought back truly understand the death and pain they helped spread and if they actually have remorse for what they have done. Before Covid, I would have been so receptive to this post. But COVID and what they did changed everything. The gurusphere and their followers went from deluded to mass murderers overnight. "they're just lost, scared, and confused." You know what, I was super lost, scared, and confused when my uncle who has known and (I thought) loved me my entire life retweeted some politician saying people like me on the COVID frontlines should be shot for the terrible terrible crime of trying to protect the vulnerable.

Sounds like you got exposed to some pretty toxic reactionary shit. I’m sorry that what I wrote brought all that up for you. I want to be clear I was never a covid denier or skeptic. The isolation from the lock downs and the stress from being scared of the virus (I have asthma) drove me into the IDW side of the internet. I’ve done some work with PPE in hospitals, aged care and allied healthcare during COVID outbreaks. You guys are amazing and deserve respect, support and the ability to get the rest you deserve. While I hope that eventually someone helps those people you mentioned wake up, this post was in no way meant to say that anyone, especially people that they hurt, ‘should’.

Sorry I didn’t add this in my first reply. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I think your experience adds important context to how dangerous these people are. I appreciate it.

Glad you made it to the other side. One great thing about being human is that we do have the ability to change, even though it isn't easy.

It’s super hard. Constantly improving is the goal. Thanks again for engaging so thoughtfully with my initial post. Doesn’t sound easy, and it’s important for people to see that while some people can snap out of it. While they’re in they can do pretty horrific damage.

Thank for this comment. I wasn’t a frontline worker during Covid but I did have loads of family and friends fall into that hole and YEARS or trying with them to no avail have left me numb and out of fucks to give about “rehabilitation” for them or having them in my life.

>trying with them to no avail have left me numb and out of fucks to give about “rehabilitation” for them or having them in my life. The dual-reality of the country electing the former guy and how it acted during COVID really soured me on a lot of the U.S. Even during the Bush days, I had a "We may disagree on some policy stuff, but we're all still Americans" philosophy, but at this point, I'm just done with a good chunk of the people I share a political border with. I don't have sympathy for the COVIDIOTS who died when they didn't need to and I find Herman Cain's death absolutely hilarious.

Aren't they aren't backing down either - I'm a vet and was on a facebook post about vaccinating your dog - pretty boring stuff but man you should have seen the rabble of brigading covid denying tin foil hat health experts on there. Some people moved on but the hardcore are unreachably ignorant and out of touch with reality.

That must have been so hard for you, I don’t thought about health care workers a lot during covid, and all the threats being made and protests in front of hospitals, etc.  Jordan Peterson and his ilk are incredibly dangerous, beyond anti-vax disinformation, the hateful anti-transgender rhetoric, the blatant misogyny, the white supremacy, etc, is just grotesque. Peterson has created an army of young men who feel justified in blaming women for all their problems and who think they are owed subservience from women for biological reasons. He is not helping lonely men form relationships, he is legitimizing misogyny that makes these men far LESS attractive to women. And pulling them into the extreme rightwing while he does it.  I am an empathetic person, but that empathy dries up in the face of hatred and bigotry that is so harmful to others, and conspiracy theory is destroying democracy (and kills people when it is applied to vaccines),

ER nurse before, during, and after the pandemic. I feel this 1000 percent.

People that are susceptible to these ideologies are also susceptible to victim-thinking. This post was written by someone that, despite having broken out of some dangerous thinking, still wants to put others responsible for fixing these broken people. It's nonsense and mostly just leads to wrecking our own mental health trying to "save" or help those people. I'm glad OP got out of it. I really am. But it seems he was always capable of seeing the light and wasn't too invested in the crazy. Not everyone is like that.

Yeah, it’s called changing and maturing.

“guru manosphere” is perfect lol!

I'm with you in the loss in hope for humanity after covid. I saw how deeply ideological people were about minimal tiny things that they made up to represent bigger values and concepts that were not threatened, but used as a hammer to fight back against extremely reasonable requests and thoughts. I used to think humans were very close to being smart enough to care for each other and community, and take collective action for everyone's benefit. Now I'm positive that 50% of the country would shoot a fellow American to complete their drive to Wendy's uninterrupted. Getting into guns and gun culture only further reinforced this to me, seeing average right wingers in a space where they can feel free to say whatever they want and be honest, you see how dangerous and crazy these people are, and how crazy their beliefs are. You get to see just how much conspiracy and absolutely made up bullshit they believe and how desperate they are to fight to continue to believe made up nonsense.

Thank you for sharing your story and spelling out what really worked for you.

I hope it's useful

I only discovered him really late, way after everyone else, I never keep up with things. So he was kind of done for a lot of people by the time I paid attention. I mean he has SOME things to say that are relevant maybe, but there's also a lot of BS and seems like he just does what most online influencers do and shapeshifts into the next trendy incarnation, so he was talking about how to be a man and now he's condemning Andrew Tate (because I guess he doesn't want the association. I mean who does?), I also remember seeing a lot about his diet (which I think gave him a heart problem in the end?) because he was just eating beef and no vegetables and he reckoned this was good somehow. I mean for a guy with a PhD he seems to be just as flighty and boundary-less as everyone else, i.e. trying to be an expert on things out of his field, I mean I can do that, but just because I've read some Dostoevsky (for example) doesn't mean I'm an expert on Russian literature, if I sounded off about Crime and Punishment I could maybe be convincing, but still . . . Most academics have got ethics and also too much respect for facts and actual proven knowledge to jump around and bullshit like that though, so I don't get it, if he has a job at a University (does he still??) then what's his obsession with being all over the internet for things he only has sketchy to moderate knowledge of? Anyway like I said I came to him late so I guess all this stuff has probably been raked over already but that's what I think of him.

As someone who is currently doing a PhD I can say with some confidence that I am a bit of a moron and I’m still managing ok, and I see fellow students who either academically headbutt their way through walls instead of using doors, or rely a lot on the kindness and support of others to limp through. A LOT more people in the world could get a PhD than you think with just an relevant interest in a particular field of study and a supportive working environment.

I know I tried to get a PhD myself about 10 years back, didn't finish it, I'm not any genius myself but there's a massive difference between people getting a PhD and being a tenured academic with a professorship. No one should still be bullshitting at that level or where have academic standards gone?

Most people I know with PhDs tend toward the nutty professor archetype, so probably not always a reliable predictor of stability. (No disprespect, often consider this path myself. Nutty professor would suit me :-) )

I loved his and Shapiros commentary on the state of sex in the US and whats wrong with it. Yes, tell us all about it, guy who coughs dust and hasn't smiled in 45 years, and the other who's 5'2" and can't make his wife wet. 

"he was talking about how to be a man and now he's condemning Andrew Tate" and? that isn't shapeshifting. JP thinks men should take responsibility for themselves and AT thinks men shouldn't read books. That's like calling a chef a hypocrite for criticising someone else for cooking, when that other person is serving up raw chicken

He's only condemned Tate since the trafficking allegations came out, now all of a sudden he wants to talk about psychopathy and toxic masculinity and distance himself from the whole manosphere thing. He had nothing to say about it previously even though a lot of influencers online like Tate, people part of the manosphere world, were holding him up as someone who was directly speaking them. He never denied at any point to my knowledge that that was the case until the prospect of being aligned with a possible rapist and incel reared its head. So yes, shapeshifting. He's totally changed his tune, gone into complete definitional retreat. As I said there are some things he says that have some validity but mostly I think he says what's currently going to resonate and make him look good as most people who just want online attention and validation do, and as such most of what he comes out with is garbage.

I also wouldn't call him a chef given his all beef diet, he'd be better off running a steak house.

Can I ask why you watched Dave Rubin and found him convincing? Every video of his I've seen has been extremely superficial and stupid, and other than telling people what they want to hear, I've never understood why people would watch him. How did these videos land with you?

Slipped in with his first ep being with Sam Harris and hitting all the right buzz words I ‘needed’ to hear at the time. I’m particularly embarrassed when looking back on it and seeing very good and entertaining take down videos that were made while I was still listening to his podcast. I stopped listening to him when I caught myself nodding along to some English white nationalist while driving to a lunch. Very weird time. It’s so easy to write people who get sucked in off, but I think a fair whack of them are lost, sad and tired.

I'm glad you got out! It might do you and others some good to try and write about this stuff, try to identify the emotional hooks and techniques at play.

lol I agree. See above post

Good. I think other clauses could be added about the application of common sense. Would a man who frequently cries, eats only meat, tells other people what to think, is a drug addict and has a daughter like that, serve as a trusted guide if you met him in real life? No. You would think he was a loony and run. Same applies to the rest of the berks in that world.

The reactionary cognitive dissonance gets around any sort of common sense direct criticism. When I was in it it was a completely vibes based thing. The drugs and the meat were easily explained away as ‘he’s doing what he can in a crazy world’. Other direct criticisms could be minimised as ad hominem. When you’re in the grasp of a guru the reasoning parts of the brain aren’t as accessible. I’d have stand up arguments with people, who in hindsight were spot on, and just think that I wasn’t explaining the reactionary point well enough. I’d then dive back in and work harder to understand it better.

One of the first things I ever heard from Peterson was his argument in favor of the supernatural because people who have a "mystical experience" when taking magic mushrooms are more likely to stop smoking. I know not to judge a person entirely by one batshit insane take of theirs, but it does make me skeptical.

Is that the Austin debate with Matt Dillahunty? Such a good example.

I think this is closer to a fallacy. You can find a lot of scientists, entertainers, YouTubers and other famous people with similar or equal problems who are doing good things (or are good in something and do not try to be a guru in everything else). On other hand, there are people who don’t have such obvious problems or hide them, but who are dangerous gurus.

The question was who would you feel more comfortable following if you met them randomly. No shit the person who hides their problems well will seem more credible.  That’s not a logical fallacy to not judge people based on what you don’t know about them.

I feel like anybody truly listening to him would eventually get bored. I liked his biblical lectures and his talks about Jung. After that all he spoke about was "The Left". And he took himself way too seriously and seemed to over-analyse basic questions, his X went downhill fast.

That’s an interesting point. I didn’t listen to his podcast for very long because it quickly became too much work. But through him I spent time consuming different reactionary takes. Got into ye olde roaming millennial for a bit. Fundamentally I think it was my atheism and scientific education that saved me. As I moved into a healthier mental health space I was more able to understand the difference between getting better and ‘feeling good’. It was a dark time. Edit: I think I was truly listening. But I was so desperate for a way to feel better that I latched on to anything that gave me that ‘I can do this’ feeling

This a good way to criticize JP

Good story.

thanks, wish it was fiction. hope that it can be useful

You learned critical thinking from them, and now have your own thoughts, congrats.

I’m not sure if I’m having my own thoughts yet. But I’m certainly more critical of the thoughts I’m having.

First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

I've found a common thread with those circles is, extreme betterment of self at the detriment of all others around you. 

I don’t think that’s a bad take. It’s like they want all people to suck it up, work harder and take responsibility. I think the way it’s detrimental to others is incidental. They’re the kind of people that think a worker who gets hurt needs to be more careful next time. Rather than it being an opportunity to improve the system that’s meant to protect the worker.

Yeah, my thought stems from: their ideas require sacrifice, which initially is "myself, from hard work and personal responsibilty", to a subtle shift in what everyone else needs to be doing or ways they need to be acting. They've achieved self actualization which gives them permission and leeway to now create commentary about everyone else. Ie it starts as defense and evolves to offense. That's an outside looking in take...I'm curious if that lands at all though.  Did you ever find yourself turning on people or thinking less of groups of people or generally being less temperate?

Fucking nailed it! I had a lot of thoughts like ‘I did it, and on my own! How hard can it be?!’ Not taking into account my economic, gender, education and racial privilege. AT ALL. ad a twinge of ‘I didn’t have support or accommodations and I was able to do it just fine/I turned out ok’ Hehe, I couldn’t and I hadn’t I think I’m getting there though.

Cool, glad I was on the right track! Do you feel you started to evolve more misanthropic ideas the longer you were exposed or otherwise started resenting others? Do you feel there's still some misunderstanding about those circles or do most folks have it correct that they are bad news?

It’s hard to say, a lot of what I thought back then is fading like a bad dream. There are absolutely still fan boys fanning out. Some in the comments here. The ignorant and naive sense of certainty that comes from being ‘rational’ and unbiased’ is so easy and seductive.

Do you feel though that it represents a certain vein beyond "dudes saying it's good to be self sufficient" or were the communities you were a part of actively growing more intolerant / militant, etc? Put another way, did you feel like you were going into a much darker rabbit hole and started to see other creatures you didn't before, haha?

Yeah A pipeline if you will

I think this is not nearly cynical enough. An extreme focus on personal responsibility is about maintaining and defending a system of exploitation. The worker who got hurt should, above all else, not be the responsibility of the capital owning class. A person’s very vulnerability to exploitation becomes a justification for their continued exploitation.

You’re right

I don’t think the detriment to others is incidental. Reactionary movements/ideologies are driven by maintaining the privilege of the dominant group, or more accurately, aiming to reverse social progress by fearmongering about the “other.”  Peterson’s misogyny is not incidental, and the far-right recruits from the manosphere for a reason - misogynists are much more easily turned into full fledged white nationalists.  Women can be misogynist as well, clearly, which is why Peterson, his ilk, and rightwing political parties have plenty of support from white women in particular.

You’re right I wasn’t happy with the word incidental. I meant it as ‘not the primary point’ or ‘secondary to the focus’. While writing it I thought that incidental felt a bit glib. Thanks for calling it out.

I find that he’s always popular with people who aren’t well versed or read in philosophy,psychology or any of the things he talks about and then don’t actually bother reading any of work by any people he mentions and that they just watch YouTube videos and go no further

Here's the thing about all the "intellectuals" on the right: you don't actually need to know anything about anything they are talking about to tell they are full of shit. They are fallacious and internally inconsistent. If someone well educated in logic cannot state a logical idea without poking a bunch of holes in their own words it's a red flag. Peterson, Shapiro, etc, cannot go 2 paragraphs without arguing with themselves.

I think r/Healthygamergg would appreciate this post as well

Good read but sadly the range of people who get into Peterson is pretty big. My experience with Peterson is: A friend of mine got into his bible lectures and recommended them to me. I gave them a try and they were interesting for an hour but at some point I had a really hard time understanding what his actual point was and it was often something that sounded made up by him. Often it sounded like he found meanings that were not supported in any other way - just in his head. When I asked my friend what he really liked about the lectures he had a really hard time picking up something but he loved them anyway. I decided to check more of Peterson's work and found plenty of material where he is on the verge of sounding sexist or racist but never explicitly say it. Like he is letting his fans to fill the gaps in their heads. I remember posting in his sub a few years ago only to receive something like 50 critical comments in a few hours. This all made me wonder how there is such a big group of people who are so obsessed with him. The more and more I read about him, the more I realized that a lot of his fans are following him like a cult leader even tho they were constantly talking about "logic", "studies", "research" and all that. The end for me was his debate with Zizek. Before that I never bothered to double check most of his stuff - they just sounded dodgy to me. In the debate with Zizek is when I confirmed in my head that Peterson really is full of shit. What surprised me more tho was that somehow this didn't make his fans doubt him more and more. Even when I read testimonials of people who have quit being fans, the Zizek episode never seemed to be something people cared about. To me this only confirmed that not only is Peterson a grifter but his fans are actually being part of a cult. That all said, I have friends who are into him. Some became deeper and deeper and started to constantly send me anti-wokeness tik-tok videos every day to a point where we stopped being friends. Others ended up just loving his self-help stuff and mildly interested in anti-wokeness. What's common tho is that his fans often had unhealthy relationships with women. All 3 people I can think of are like that.

Being a fan of Peterson will ensure that anyone who had unhealthy relationships with women will find it even harder to have a relationship with women. Having difficult relationships or experiencing heartbreak doesn’t make all men prone to listening to a blatant misogynist. Someone who accepts his point of view is already misogynist, but may not be conscious of it, and along comes Peterson giving them all sorts of justification and encouraging and inflaming the view that men are supposed to be dominant (because lobsters).  Peterson makes men more lonely than they were, or ensures they remain lonely. 

That's all true. You have to have in you to be influenced by Peterson.

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I was like that friend who watched his videos and found them wise. His disney movie stuff worked really well on me. I felt so smart, even rewatched some. I was already out before I saw that debate ( https://youtu.be/qsHJ3LvUWTs?si=Vw9P_osmlYrauoV6 this one?). I think the reason it isn’t the reason many people cite for why they leave is that they have a spectator sport attitude to those sorts of ‘free exchanges of ideas’. Like if he had a bad night that’s all it is. A bad night. They barrack for JBP. Does that make sense?

I got tired of being nice to my insane parents with these ridiculous ideas, while they treated were mean to me because I had common sense beliefs. I’m not Gandi.

Fair The more I look back the more I realise that having the red pill type beliefs was probably a symptom of digger personal issues and I was looking for a way to get out the entire time. I’m sure there are people that believe it with their whole body.

Can you provide some clarity on the “any injury or illness in the workplace is a systems fault, not the workers” part?

Workers acting in good faith can’t be held personally responsible for injuries or illnesses that are a result of their work. There must be a safety system in place to protect them.

Yeah I get what you’re saying there a little more. That’s decently clear. If you could expand upon that a little more and couch it philosophically from first principles it would really help me out.

Others can do this much better that me. Have a look at: Safety 2 Safety differently Safety Culture No claim culture Safety systems https://www.ohsbok.org.au/ Is a good place to start. As is : https://safetyofwork.com/

i don’t know if my answer will help you or is this op’s intention . I think what op means here is when a worker who is under pressure from management/higher ups to produce/do more injures themselves or others because of the haste. Here the worker is not at fault for working faster but it’s the system’s fault of poor management that the worker got injured. Also i don’t know how to put it using the first principles so sorry for that

Even removing any undue pressure from management it would still be an issue with the system. In workplaces with a healthy safety culture there are still incidents and people are still hurt. No blame thinking is hard and goes against a lot of how we are trained to think. I’d go so far as to say a worker deliberately causing harm to themselves or others is an issue with the system. In the case of a pathological worker the system issue is in the hiring and screening process.

> I’d go so far as to say a worker deliberately causing harm to themselves or others is an issue with the system. In the case of a pathological worker the system issue is in the hiring and screening process. Random “shower thought”, don’t take it as a serious critique because I actually agree with you, but still find this funny: this can be one small step away from returning back to “blame the worker”. Need of a hiring and screening process still means that there are good workers and bad workers, you are just removing bad ones before they start working and harming themselves. So good system should not have bad workers, but even if we hire good workers people will change, for example when problems outside of work arise, so we need to fire those people to keep system good. So someone getting hurt means he became bad worker, and we need to blame him and fire him to keep system “good”.

Completely agree. Safety systems need to be dynamic and responsive. Constantly evolving and supporting all workers to be in the right job for them. If it were easy we’d have got it right the first time. Thanks for pointing this out. It’s a good criticism of the mode of thinking that needs to be understood as a feature and not a bug.

I was wondering this too and I think "acting in good faith" and "are a result of the work" make the statement true. I can think of a lot of ways that a worker fucking around could injure themselves and it be entirely their fault.

Absolutely agree. The two phrases you’ve picked do a lot of work. Safety culture and no blame culture does, however, also see that a worker fucking around and getting hurt as also not the workers fault. If them being silly, or not taking a ruler seriously causes them to get hurt then we need to look up the hierarchy of control and make a better barrier, change out the work or eliminate the task. In practice we have to make judgement calls and occasionally sanction workers because of cultural expectations. But in theory it’s systems all the way down.

> Can you provide some clarity on the “any injury or illness in the workplace is a systems fault, not the workers” What part of that is unclear. Here's a parallel that might help to illustrate the point of that message. Let's pretend you come to me for a loan. You make your case, I make an assessment then I decide to loan you some amount. 3 months later you default on the loan repayment. It becomes clear to me I won't be getting my money back. Who's at fault? Most people are going to say that you are. You owe me money, you can't pay, you're at fault. They're wrong. I'm at fault. When I lent you the money I made an assessment that you could (and would) pay me back. My assessment was wrong. I'm the only person in this arrangement who had any agency. You did not force me to take on the risk of loaning you money, it was my choice and I chose poorly. Similarly, in OH&S, it is up to the workplace to ensure that the workplace is safe. If you look at the[ Hierarchy of Safety Controls](https://makesafetools.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/OSHA-Hierarchy-of-Controls0-1-768x464.png) you can see this principle at work. If workplaces were not the ultimate responsibility when it came to OH&S, this pyramid wouldn't exist: every problem could be solved by the simple phrase "Don't do anything that would result in injury or death.". You wouldn't need guard rails on stairs, anti slip mats on floors, fire extinguishers or even PPE. You could just tell employees "Hey, do everything 100% correctly and without endangering yourself or others" and that would cover it. Instead we make safety a part of owning and operating a workspace. Whilst there are instances of employees going out of their way to dangerously fuck things up, in every other instance the workplace is responsible. When a workplace employs you, they take on the burden of safety, much like a person loaning money takes on the burden of the loan.

The loan analogy is excellent. I’m going to start using it. Thank you for sharing and contributing! I really appreciate it.

It’s never a good idea to take advice or direction from one source. No one person, book or belief system has all the answers. Always spread your net of interests wide enough to get away from narrow thinking and beliefs. JP put out some interesting points initially but that doesn’t then mean he’s now the source of all knowledge. Even his good points were quite basic and nothing especially unusual. I then noticed that he himself was dealing with some pretty bad personal issues. I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with him but he does appear to be struggling with something and this internal struggle and urge to lash out made his opinions more outlandish. He appears to be on a philosophical journey as we all are and perhaps he will come to more rational conclusions as he ages. Another thing to bear in mind is that like many in the social media business he needs followers and sycophants to fund his life so if I was to be cynical he’s really doing it for money and attention. So on the one hand I pity him for whatever problems he has and on the other I think he’s being somewhat manipulative.

This reads like something Meta AI wrote. 

**I was deep into Jordan Peterson**. Not because I had horrible things happen to me, but because I was deeply unsatisfied with where I was in my love life and career. I was starting to believe the stuff about trans people destroying the west and women being inherently sneaky and deceiving. My feed was filled with alt-right content, but at one point, I saw a video of [someone rebuking Jordan Peterson on the gender pay gap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKc_8fT6pGc). I scoffed at it because after seeing the Cathy Newman interview, I was convinced Peterson was right and this was just culture wars bullshit to make men (and by extension the west) seem like an aweful place. After a while, I started feeling anxious about the video and thought to myself, why am I feeling anxious about watching this content if I should feel confident about being able to counter the arguments? So eventually I started to feel as though I needed to watch this video to prove to myself that I was capable, smart and not afraid of a challenge. I went in there fully expecting to mock the person, but the more I listened the more his arguments made sense. It's not even that I thought he was right or wrong. Maybe the source for his statistics where different and he was indeed incorrect, but the mere fact that Jordan Peterson NEVER engaged in rebuking the arguments presented in the video made me feel as though I was being mislead by someone who thought had enough information, but really didn't. I was not convinced at that moment that it was intentional and I was being fooled, but I did feel as though Peterson was falling short on his rigor and that his insane confidence on the matter was completely unjustified. I could not rationalize him only framing the issue in one way while ignoring all other perspectives and selling that as gold. This is when I started being skeptical and going after more sources. Like I said, it's not that at that point I thought Peterson was fooling me, I simply thought he didn't do his homework properly so I had to double check. And the more I did this and sought expert groups talking about the things Peterson claimed he knew, the more I realized he was a charlatan and that I was being thoroughly sucked in by someone who knew very little beyond basic self-help and oratorical skills. Then it clicked: To Peterson, intellegience is more so about the performance of being an authority figure more so than actually knowing things. **As for helping out people in that space. It's not reasonably possible to do it consistently**. It wasn't for me and it's not the case for my friend currently in that space right now. I tried the empathetic approach and having long discussions where we talk about fundamental things from the bottom to the top to make him feel safe that I'm not manipulating him. It doesn't work for long enough, he reverts quickly into old habits. I can only spend time with him every so often, but he is online for hours at a time. I simply can't compete and not everyone can break out of it the way I did. To most people, it's not about breaking an opinion with arguments, it's about breaking a habitual reaction mechanism. It's not feasible unless you have constant attention or professional help. I'm not going to give up on my friend, but I can't be around him when he starts talking shit about minorities or women. All I can do is be ready when he comes out of it.

So well put! Thank you for taking the time to comment. Is it possible for you to share that video?

[Jordan Peterson Doesn't Understand Gender Discrimination (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKc_8fT6pGc&t=8s) I added a last paragraph about how I see helping people in that space also. It might be a bit dissapointing, but I think it's realistic. >**As for helping out people in that space. It's not reasonably possible to do it consistently**. It wasn't for me and it's not the case for my friend currently in that space right now. I tried the empathetic approach and having long discussions where we talk about fundamental things from the bottom to the top to make him feel safe that I'm not manipulating him. It doesn't work for long enough, he reverts quickly into old habits. I can only spend time with him every so often, but he is online for hours at a time. I simply can't compete and not everyone can break out of it the way I did. To most people, it's not about breaking an opinion with arguments, it's about breaking a habitual reaction mechanism. It's not feasible unless you have constant attention or professional help. I'm not going to give up on my friend, but I can't be around him when he starts talking shit about minorities or women. All I can do is be ready when he comes out of it.

Empathy and Compassion are the biggest things lacking in a lot of people who go down these rabbit holes. Kudos to you for finding your way back to "humanity" if you will ;).

Thank, the comments this post has generated has had shown me the breadth of opinions about this. Not sure I’ll be making a post like it again. Very inconsistent experience

I'd add also that Peterson's videos span decades of content. If you dig deep into his undergraduate lectures, you will find a passionate teacher. But as we say about Nicholas Cage winning the Oscar, things have changed.

I think you nailed it best with “Show Empathy and Patience”. We’re not all working with the same set of tools, each person is different and we have to take each person as we meet them, one at a time. We don’t need to categorize people before we get to know them.

Yes a little unbias3d digging will get anyone there These crypto fascist nutjobs like jp and matt walsh have a reach that is frigt3ningly large Internet and all. Jp is especially problematic, self help book writer and all.

Do you think any of the stuff helped you? I actually have a pretty similar experience in that my mom also died of cancer and I was a little hopeless and found advice on the internet. I never got really deep into the bubble though and thought the daily wire folks are a bit too much for me, however JP (and also Rogan somewhat) was really something of a hero of mine because I attributed much of the process of getting better to him. Now I'm not entirely sure what to think, I am really disappointed what these people have become but I can't wrap my head around that they were always this way. What do you think?

Something that really helped was when ha said about games: You don’t want to win the game, you want to win the set of all possible games. And the only way to do that is to always be invited to play. That, I still use. And sometimes wonder if it’s a JBPism or something he lifted. But I will probably newer look it up.

See, the fact he was a junkie in the face of all his pontificating - that would have done it for me.

Good, there’s always something. By the time I found out about his coma in Russia I’d already ‘diversified’. I easily rationalise his drug use as him self medicating. Because i couldn’t live up to his standards made me forgive that he couldn’t. To be honest the thing that bothered me most, at the time, about his coma was the reruns on his podcast. In hindsight it was enough of a break to help me to chill out a bit. I had made of irl friends who helped me to stay red pilled at that point though. I think if I’d had someone in my life that kept saying ‘yeah, but he a junky…’ over and over it may have had a similar chink finding quality in’s my friend that just stated she’d rejecting him. Dunno though, could also have gone the other way.

I’m glad you found your way through, but I’d offer just a bit of advice as some random asshole on the internet. Be careful that you don’t replace one outrage peddling pundit for another. Don’t trust that they’re doing their due diligence because I promise you; the more primary sources you read yourself, the more you’ll come to understand that the vast majority of pundits don’t seem to give a shit about what’s “true” and are more interested in clicks and engagement. I spent the better part of a year reading Mueller’s report, IG Horowitz’s report on Crossfire Hurricane, and ultimately Durham’s report. I’ve never heard a conservative pundit that made me think they even read the executive summary and, unfortunately, the same is true the vast majority of progressive pundits. Andrew from Opening Arguments (he’s no longer there iirc). Consider your own principles, acknowledge your own cognitive biases, and recognize that it’s impossible to keep up with all the “stories” thrown at you.

I’m right there with you. I’ve diversified my whole ‘ideascape’. It’s a good point to have articulated in the discussion. Thanks for taking the time to make it.

No longer trusting any one person or group to confirm what's right and wrong is what allows me to take what's useful from JP and leave the rest. I used to never believe anything that didn't come from the furthest left sources possible and now I realize I was susceptible to the propaganda of "my side" because I simply liked and agreed with it. I am no longer swayed by the idea that calling a newspaper calling Nazi "dapper," when he objectively has an unusually dapper style, [means American society has fully normalized Naziism](https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/it-isnt-journalisms-job-to-hand-hold) lol. That type of thinking just alienates you from those around you because you inevitably start to think of yourself as smarter or more enlightened than anyone who doesn't instantly agree with your guru. Pundits exist to outrage you, to distort your thinking, their livelihood depends on it. Fuck em all. I can now read something by a conservative that I happen to agree with without having a crisis of morality. In fact it's made me even more sure of my values and morals to accept that it really is healthy to have a normal push and pull between segments of society who want to move fast and break things (progressives) and those who want to pull the brake so we don't end up throwing babies out with bathwater (conservatives.) It's good to have checks in place. I'm not convinced JP is "dangerous." An example given above is that he once spoke about Nazis and Communists and didn't talk about how bad the Nazis were enough, as if people are unaware that Nazis are considered bad in all but the most extreme fringes of our society and as if there aren't thousands of leftist dumbasses online with NK's flag in their bios. It is just a fact that the American left downplays the devastation caused by communism, now cue the lemmings coming in to scream about how the Holodomor didn't happen. Even the pay gap issue, I can't see how this individual guy having a different opinion really matters all that much. I think that a lot of "youtube radicalization" rhetoric rests on similar arguments that are now being discredited because social science research on priming has proven unable to replicate. The idea is that if JP says the pay gap isn't real, instantly his thousands of followers are going to think the same thing because they've been primed, and very quickly destroy existing protections for preventing pay gaps. I do not think this is a rational response, I think it is a lazy slippery slope argument.

>Even the pay gap issue, I can't see how this individual guy having a different opinion really matters all that much. I was interested in hearing what this video had to say and then seeing the channel's other videos realized what this was going to be about. One of his videos is about "making sense of capitalism" and the thumbnail has Karl Marx wearing sunglasses. Seems like the field of economics(which he is oddly educated in) doesn't suit his beliefs so he's going to go make videos about how we should be more Communist.

I'm curious to know what video you watched that made you think he is more sympathetic to communism than capitalism? I would assume that thumbnail was a joke and he was talking about the downsides and upsides of both communism and capitalism. I heard that he was a socialist in his youth which is what led me to look into him in the first place, since I had only heard that he was a \~literal fascist\~. I started listening to Maps of Meaning and the first few chapters or so where he talks about his politics in his youth were really interesting. He talked about how when he worked on some school project with conservative classmates he found that he admired their work ethic and generosity, and had a hard time squaring that with how he was supposed to view conservatives. This is the root of his now anti-leftist stuff.

My bad, using my phone and posted on the wrong comment. There's a video critiquing JP's gender pay gap claim as I was replying too.

As someone who is education adjacent, I think it is very cool that your WHS training played a part in this.

I really like this post and self reflection. No one’s views and teachings are meant to be followed devoutly. It’s a shame that those with microphones and the internet can influence a generation of young men

Peterson has good self-help advice as a psychologist, not particularly groundbreaking, but good advice nonetheless. The rules from his book are harmless and exactly what people need to hear at times, plus he's usually really good at articulating those emotions (mostly in his earlier videos that are much more succinct and to the point) and presenting them in simple terms which I assume is why he became really popular initially. Almost anything else from him, imo, isn't worth listening to at all. He purposely makes his speech wildly confusing with record number metaphors per minute because he knows there's no way to objectively defend his stance on a lot of fronts. It's a shame that he went that route because his advice on how to properly care for yourself is so much better and comprehensive than most of the motivational scams out there whose advice to young men is simply "alpha male good, work like a maniac (even tho they themselves don't), the only thing that matters in life is money and dating hot women". And his advice is now lost in the middle of all his (often hateful) opinions on a bunch of controversial subjects.

My introduction to Jordan Peterson came shortly after I left Christianity. My roommate, an “alpha bro” type, told me I’d really like him and showed me some of his content. Immediately I got the vibe of “this is entry level intellectualism for douchebags”. Nothing JP was saying seemed particularly profound or even well-formed as arguments, so I never took interest.

Youtube helped me quit youtube. Now I am free. I share my journey via a computer and an AI. Sometimes they let me see the sun. But seriously, nice share.

I can't take JP seriously, but if ever I start to I just connect him with this guy who is even more entertaining and probably more accurate on average. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwUizOU8pPWXdXNniXypQEQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwUizOU8pPWXdXNniXypQEQ)

Fair advice, but there are limits. I draw the line when it turns into intolerance and cruelty.

Absolutely We each have to draw our own line. I’m pretty tolerant of intolerance for the first arbitrary number of times. There’s a line that I won’t tolerate people crossing, I’m pretty sure it’s consistent.

I’m not a big fan of people just posting AI responses instead of sitting down and just writing. This reads entirely like a paint-by-numbers chatGPT text. And not in any good way.

That’s a fair criticism. I think I’ll not do it again, but it has been interesting

I appreciate you taking the criticism well.

When you’re right, you’re right I think this has given me a bit of an idea of how to structure it. Might be fun to write something like: ‘I used gpt4o to write a summary of a reddit thread. Here’s what I learned’ I could try to write it as much like a robot as possible and see how many people accuse me of using the robot again. It’d take ages and be the best troll post ever.

You know, I don’t think everything needs to be a lesson or a content opportunity. It’s very plain popcorn stuff. Writing is tedious and fiddly. But the reasons why it’s obvious when a human isn’t doing it are the same things that make it tedious and fiddly to do.

That’s well put. In the context of thinking about the post I’m treating a lot of the commentary as feedback to help with my next post. In general I’m well with you. I leave my reddit conversation style on reddit. Thanks for the input

Thank you so much for sharing this. This was very comforting to read after feeling like I’ve lost so many loved ones to this reactionary way of thinking.

I too used to be a Peterson fan from about 2015-18/19ish. I had my issues with depression and self loathing, then my first relationship ended in 2010 which I did not handle well. From there I started getting further into libertarian/conservatism. As my sexual frustration increased I started getting into the pua community but part of me knew they were scumbags from there I got into Peterson via Dave Rubin. I would devour his content on a daily basis and I woukd constantly share anything that involved him on and sub that woukd put up with it It took a few years but I started to see him and the IDW fow what they actually were. I got into a new relationship. I started getting out of my own head I let go of anger and developed empathy. I starred viewing content that debunked Peterson. This one took a while but my mind started getting changed bit by bit

The self loathing really undermines the critical thinking doesn’t it? Thanks you for taking the time to share you experience.

> I found Jordan Peterson through anti-SJW YouTube channels and influencers like Sam Harris and Dave Rubin. How did you get into that niche?

Got into Harris in undergrad days. God delusion times, religious debates on Campus, all that stuff. Through him I got into anti creationists on YouTube, main one being thunderf00t. At some point, I want to say 2014-15, a lot of them pivoted to ‘rational criticism’ of sjw. Around the same time I got sucked in to a lot of anti Islam 9/11 reactionary stuff. You’re Bans Shapiro and your Andrews Klavan. It’s pretty embarrassing looking back. I think the how is that I was so convinced o was unbiased and marking my decision based on evidence and rationality. Thought I had a scientific world view. But really I had scientism and privilege. Does that make sense?

That makes complete sense! I was actually just thinking about thunderf00t in a similar context so it’s interesting to see someone bring him up independently! I can see how the algorithm could start siloing people and sending them down the rabbit hole

His why do people laugh at creationists was pretty much the reason I started watching YouTube. I’m a bit sad that I resonated more with Harris and was primed to go down the anti sjw rabbit hole. It was so close too, in a slightly different universe I doubled down on Dennett and found the entire thing weird and watched from the sidelines hoping everyone would calm down.

I think we all have areas we can fall prey to. Luckily Peterson is one that I could never fall for.

Thanks for sharing! How did Sam Harris lead you to Peterson? The first time I even heard of Peterson was when he went of Harris’ podcast for the first time ( the whole thing about how they disagreed on what “truth” is) and he made no sense to me. How was Sam the gateway for you?

My interest in Harris had me primed to latch on to JBP’s anti sjw and free speech shtik. Putting some energy into my memory I’ve found one where in a q and a Harris was asked about having JBP on his podcast. From that I looked him up. Harris’s early support for Rubin and the IDW gave him a lot of credibility as I was still very much in the ‘new atheist’ mindset and he was my preferred acolyte

Do you see Harris and Peterson as being basically equivalent, or is Sam a stepping stone to more extreme figures like Peterson?

THAT’S a difficult question. Gun to my head: stepping stone More time to unpack: I dunno, a bit, it depends. Y’know?

Definitely. I’m very interested because I’ve been a big Sam Harris fan for probably almost 20 years now. But, I never liked Peterson, or Rubin, or Rogan, etc. I never liked any of the IDW, and argued that Sam didn’t belong in that group, which he has since distanced himself from. But, I also never liked Sam’s take on wokeness and thought he spent way too much time thinking about it. And I’ve worried in the past that he was acting as a stepping stone to more extreme figures, which it seems like you’re confirming. Are there other public intellectuals that also act like stepping stones?

It’s interesting, Harris kept me tethered to reality. But also kept me willingly ignorant about the left. Michael Shermer is a good example of one that gave oxygen to red pillers. Josh Szeps is another. I’ve got to the stage recently where I can barely listen to Harris. He’s so smug and willfully obtuse. His recent ep with Maher was amazing

I think you’re right about Shermer, which is a big bummer for me since I used to really like him. When you say that he kept you ignorant about the left- in what way? And also, why did you like the episode with Maher so much?

He was so confidently critical of the ‘woke mob’, I just took what he said as fact. Didn’t bother looking into it. When I eventually did i was like: wow! These guys are alright, better even. I’m going to pay more attention. Dammit! I wasn’t sure if my tone would get across. And it didn’t. I meant amazing on the sense that I was amazed at how terrible the takes were. I couldn’t even finish it.

Got it! Yeah, I’ve said it a few times in the Sam Harris sub, but I went to a live event many, many years ago where Sam was thinking out loud about the intellectual version of eyelashes. He was saying that when you have an eyelash in your eye, you literally can’t do anything else until you get it out, even though your life isn’t at all in danger. In contrast, your body could be “ravaged by cancer” and you may not even know it. He was wondering what the intellect version of that was. And ironically, I think that wokeness is his intellectual eyelash. He dedicates so much brainpower to it and clearly that leads people astray into more extreme avenues. So who do you look up to now? And do you find that this shift has changed things politically, like who you’re going to vote for in November?

lol I reckon Harris himself was an eyelash I’d got used to. I try to not look at at all. Focusing on material impact and effect. Alas, I’m not in the jurisdiction that gets to vote in that particular election. I do not envy those that have to make that choice. Would provably hold my nose and vote dem in the presidential. Would be looking in detail at all candidates lower down in house, state and local issues though

I'd say Rogan doesn't belong in that group. To me he's a guy that talks to a lot of people, has casual conversations, frequently gets good interviews as a result, and just as frequently not only admits he's an idiot, but outright proves it. Sometimes he's a bit of an ideological chameleon, and it appears to me its in the service of making his guests feel comfortable. I don't tune in to Joe Rogan to watch him, I tune in to hear what his guests have to say. I'm a natural skeptic, though. Just because Terrance Howard is on Rogan's show doesn't make him correct. I recognized a lot of Howard's psuedoscience schtick from the same people he name-dropped. He's clearly been hanging out with the Dancing Wu-Li Masters crowd. I like Alan Watts from a comparative religion angle, but lots of Howards references were big with the Hippy Blue Cheer Rainbow Family crowd in the 1960s and 1970s. We've come a LONG way scientifically since then. Maybe for some people, Joe Rogan lends Howard credibility. For others he might be a open door for the curious. Everybody has their own journey to take.

Maybe Rogan was that once, but now he’s a right wing commentator like many others (DTG has proven that).

Yeah you'd have to overlook his self-deprecation and frequent proof that his foolish insights have little to no merit to see him as a influencer. Which is common. In my mind he has very little credibility on his own.

Except that a lot of people do listen to his opinions and also trust those he brings on as guests.

Joe Rogan reminds me of the weekly world news. You used to wait in line at the supermarket and you could pick up a magazine off the shelf with headlines like "Bat Boy kills Osama bin Laden" and " Hillary Clinton has UFO aliens baby". People used to laugh at folks who believed all that stuff. It was even a major plot point in the movie "So I Married an Ax Murderer". The funny a thing in there is that some of the news in that paper was real. There really are strange things that happen. The big attention grabbing headlines were always fake, but on page 5 you'd find something verifiably true. Now there are entire Youtube channels dedicated to the strange-but-true. Some of them even first appeared in that periodical. So I find it's good to know what people are thinking. Sometimes its true, sometimes its BS. There are ways to sift through the information provided. Not everybody has that skill/knowledge. When you run into a lady at the Whole Foods all-natural chakra-cleansing hippiemart that wants to tell you about how your house was actually burned down by orbital energy weapons, you kind of have a good idea of where she got that and where she's going with it. That's why you don't feel bad telling her "no I can't drive you and your groceries home". Because you know the lineage of that belief, and inviting that into your life is a bad idea. So yeah I'm a big fan of people exposing wacky theories. I'd say give more people the ability to apply critical thinking and be familiar with the lineages of certain ideas. For example, when you know who Gerald LK Smith was, the words "Christian Nationalist" take on a whole new meaning. When you know who Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists were, you can identify things that were carried on by their believers...then you know where Terrance Howard got some of HIS ideas. Joe Rogan, for me at least, is a Plato's Cave experience. And I value it. Is he correct? The most truthful thing he says is that he doesn't know much about many things. Even the stuff that he thinks he knows much about he really doesn't. He's not a great comedian, he's not particularly bright, but he does conduct an interview that puts his guests at ease and willing to speak candidly. That's what he does well.

Here is what helped me break free. I started listening to Jonathan Pageau and his brother instead. It's like Peterson without the emphasis on culture war. Actually Peterson draws heavily from Pageau but he obfuscates the message by tying everything back to culture wars which makes everybody turn their brains off.

Thanks for contributing; I hope others can also use this to help.

So now what? Your room is a mess, you lie, and you don’t pet cats? What was so sinister about his advice?

If all you’ve been exposed to is his 12 rules I’d say stop there and enjoy any help they provided. I wouldn’t recommend delving deeper.

What’s the deeper advice?

Have you seen the shawshank redemption? I feel like you’re being deliberately obtuse

I feel like you have no objections to him, other than your online friends don’t like him.

Ok

Smh this is an AI post why is anyone taking it seriously.

It’s an ai assisted summary of a comment thread I was part of a month ago. Link to original at the bottom of the post. I thought it might be useful and I had a couple of weeks left on my paid account. I think it captures the vibes of the comment thread. I feel I’ve been pretty upfront about it being ai and have provided the link to the primary source

If you’re looking for advice on how to NOT fall into another rabbit hole, I would slow down. You’re coming at this too hard again.

Teachings? Does he have teachings?

All I gathered from this was that following JBP really turned your life around.  You don't seem grateful though.

I guess on a long enough arc that could be true. I gather from your comment that you’re a fan and indulging in some confirmation bias. Had it been his ideas that turned me around I’d be with you. It was, not however, his ideas that helped. It was realising how limiting and unhelpful his ideas are to me that turned me around.

What harmful idea did he prompt in you?

I’m sorry, I’m not interested in having that discussion. If you’re interested in ideas of his that are harmful I’d suggest looking into a YouTube search.

Personal responsibility is a harmful ideology? Lmao

Yep, But it’s delicious if you rinse it down with cool aid. Read some about the criticisms of personal responsibility. Really look into it and think about it. No one who understands your joke is laughing

Huh? Read about personal responsibility? Is that a joke it's gotta be a joke. One does not need to learn about the value of personal responsibility life experiences is enough to know being one who has and practices personal responsibility leads to a higher quality life. That's like saying read about breathing oxygen really look into the criticisms of breathing oxygen. I'm sorry but if you take 2 people and make all of their life factors the same except one is personally responsible and the other is not I guarantee the one who is not will have more struggles and less success in everything from their career to personal relationships

So you’re not taking the personal responsibility to understand the philosophical background of the criticisms of your position? A reductive analogy isn’t an argument.

It's not reductive at all. I've never heard a single rational point as to why personal responsibility is more harmful than being irresponsible personally. So I asked you to share what made you come to this conclusion. I'm sorry you were foolishness enough to make an assumption as to what I have and haven't read then assume it was a fact. But you are wrong. So again I'll try. I have not seen any argument against personal responsibility that didn't do anything other than make me laugh now will you share what it is that you read so I can see of it makes better points or makes me laugh like I assume it will

At the risk of repeating myself. What’s the intended effect of the put downs? Does being mean here have a desired outcome?

The line " read some criticism of personal responsibility " I'm sorry but if you are telling me you read enough things to realize not being personally responsible for yourself leads to a better life than you brainwashed yourself. I guess it's a lot easier to just tell yourself nothing is your fault or responsibility I'm sure that makes it much easier on one's to accept failure especially failures where one's lack of personal responsibility hurt another. But you do you. I'd rather live in a society with others who beileve in personal responsibility you can go live with the people who think their actions or lack of actions isn't their fault.

Rad, enjoy. I’d rather you live there too. I’ll join a union and have universal healthcare and a social safety net.

You can't have those unless you live in a society where people value personal responsibility silly

And you certainly won’t if you live in a society that values only it. I’d also encourage you to notice you’re the only one name calling here. What’s the intended effect of calling me silly?

But that's seriously funny. That you are making the argument here that the way a good union comes about universal health care and a social safety net for all is by having a society of people who don't feel personal responsibility is important. So according to you of you want to join a union have universal Healthcare and a social safety net then you are a person who can't possibly beileve in being responsible for their own actions. Lol

See I think it's impossible to have a functioning union if it's made up of people who don't practice person responsibility. Union dues due? Nah I'll don't feel like being personally responsible for my part in that no thanks. And don't you try and lecture me about taking personal responsibility for my part that's just harmful ideology. Universal health care you say I mean sure I'll take but I Don't feel like being personally responsible to contribute to it. Same with social safety net sure I'll take it but I'm not responsible for contributing to it at all. Man you are right this is the way to go. Only problem is if everyone leads this virtue filled life style than we won't have anything. So let's just you and me keep this on the down low. Let other fools in their non virtuous ways allow themselves to be personally responsible and take that seriously and contribute to society while me and you not only be more righteous by knowing that not doing so is more virtuous and then we can soak up the benefits of people who were personally responsible and created these things!

I'd honestly be very interested in reading what you read. I'd love for you to send me links to whatever it is you read that lead you to conclude personal responsibility is more of a negative than a positive to the individual practing it and the society thay persons a part of. I can't wait to see this kool-aid.

So you’re preaching personal responsibility and then asking me to do your research for you? Try ‘criticism of personal responsibility’ as a YouTube search. I’m pretty sure wisecrack would have a well cited video for you. It comes up on occasion in the DtG podcast.

No you need to learn to read better. I want to read specially what you read to make you think this way. I am unable to read exactly what you read unless you share it with me silly. I don't want to look up random things about personal responsibility being an overall negative and have it be a waste of time because you are gonna say that's not even what you read.

Try this book: The Safety Anarchist: Relying on Human Expertise and Innovation, Reducing Bureaucracy and Compliance Book by Sidney Dekker My position didn’t come from a single book. It called from the series of conversations with people, a collection of different podcasts and YouTubers, and subjects I took at uni and the discourse within those subjects. I’m afraid I don’t think your line of questioning is in good faith. There is no one book for you to debunk. It’s a mode of thinking and problem solving to learn. Sounds like you’re pretty passionate about personal responsibility. A question for you, if you’re taking it and it’s working. What does it matter what others think?

Man did this guy really just ask why a person who values living in a society with others who take their personal responsibilities seriously would care about others who want to live in a society where no one takes their personal responsibility seriously? Maybe because he doesn't want doctors who work in the emergency room to say ahhhh it's a nice sunny day I don't feel like working who cares by me not taking my personal responsibilities seriously I burden the rest of the staff or leave them so short handed someone dies. I guarantee you the second someone not taking their personal responsibility seriously effects your life in a harmful way you will sing a different tune. But on the other hand if you are able to live a life where you don't need to take personal responsibility for yourself you very likely aren't playing much of a role in and contributing to society much so he probably is wasting his time on you. He should probably save it for someone who if they stopped taking their personal responsibility seriously it would actually effect society or someone's life.

First step: make your bed Second step: tie your shoes  Third step: avoid turning into IRL Harvey Dent 

What is this steaming horseshit?

It’s worse than that. It’s 4 day old half dry and stuck your boots. Unruminated, semi digested ka ka from a writer than can’t regurgitate so they shit out what they should have thrown up. It’s barely worth a thoughtful critique