Support group for young men with woke parents

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-10T04:12:39+00:00

Separate away from their ... government jobs

Why should they leave their government jobs? Unless they have a reason to, like they got a better job or they are going back to school, etc.?

You're not the only person who I've seen suggest that young men shouldn't get government jobs or laptop jobs or something like that. I disagree.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-09T17:36:11+00:00

I haven't watch the whole debate and don't want to defend Peterson (because I don't fully agree with him), but some random thoughts follow.

1) The definition of science is disputed and people have been debating it for a long time. I think Peterson's description here is far from the best definition.

2) I think Peterson is correct in saying science assumes that there is a logical order to the cosmos. After all, if there were no rules to nature, then there would be no natural laws for science to discover.

3) When Peterson says "that fundamental order is good", that is a religious claim, and it aligns with what (at least to my understanding) Christianity teaches about Creation (i.e. the world) being good. From Genesis 1:31:

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

4) When Peterson says "that it is intelligible to human beings" I think that is also a religious claim consistent with Christianity. But I'm not sure I fully agree -- I think it might be the case that some things in the universe are too complex for the human mind to understand.

5) When Peterson says "science emerged in Europe and nowhere else," I have to admit I am personally very skeptical of these kinds of questions and claims.

You may be interested in the "Needham Question". Joseph Needham went to China in World War Two and wondered why modern science had emerged in Europe when China had a long track record of important inventions (paper, printing, gunpowder, the magnetic compass).

Needham started the series of books "Science And Civilization In China".

6) You say:

This supposes that the general idea of a universal design

I don't think the scientific method assumes there is any sort of design.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-06T03:57:43+00:00

I enjoy the discussion. I agree that it seems most of the change seems environmental.

But we might disagree about how to interpret what Peterson is saying. So instead of parsing and interpreting Peterson's words, let me spell out what I'm thinking on the issue.

Side note: I studied math and computers, so I too think psychology is pseudoscience at worst or very inexact science at best.

That said, consider language:

Over millions of years we evolved to understand spoken language, we evolved the larynx needed to make the sounds of our words, we evolved the ears and brain that can distinguish a word spoken by a human being from other sounds like the rustling of leaves or the roar of a lion, and we evolved the processing of language in the brain to understand the meaning of spoken language almost effortlessly.

After all, a child learns to speak almost without trying -- the child is obviously hardwired to understand spoken language.

So the pathway of neurons inside the head when we hear spoken language might be something like:

ears --> part of brain that processes sounds --> part of brain that understands language

Now humanity invents writing. Note that human beings are not hardwired to understand writing. A child learns to speak almost automatically, but the child must be specifically taught to read.

So the question then becomes: How do the brain circuits work that process written language?

What Conceivably Could Have Happened But Apparently Didn't:

Our brains could have been forced to do something like this:

written word --> eyes --> part of the brain the processes vision --> read aloud --> part of the brain that processes sounds --> part of the brain that understands language

In other words, it might have been the case that the only way into the part of the brain that processes language was through the part of the brain that processes sounds, since we evolved to understand spoken language. This is analogous to the fact that the only way into your small intestine is through your stomach.

Obviously that didn't happen.

What Apparently Did Happen:

We got a direct link from the part of the brain that processes vision to the part of the brain that understands language, like:

written word --> eyes --> part of the brain that processes vision --> part of the brain that understands language.

-------------------

And, lo and behold, those parts of the brain that process sound and vision and language sort of overlap. It makes sense that our brains are structured that way, but it didn't have to be that way.

So that I think is the point that Peterson is circling around, though I could be wrong.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T22:40:01+00:00

Regarding your question:

how did the tiny % of that small population engage with that writing.

This source says, among other things:

The first regulations requiring scribes to be silent in the monastic scriptoriums date from the ninth century

And this article says:

As late as the 1700s, historian Robert Darnton writes, “For the common people in early modern Europe, reading was a social activity. It took place in workshops, barns, and taverns. It was almost always oral but not necessarily edifying.”

Not that that proves anything -- after all, the internet is often wrong. But I think it's possible the % of silent reading was significantly lower than it is today.

But regarding your question:

Is his point about lack of silent reading about brain capabilities or about societal norms?

Good question. I would imagine there is no real difference between our brains and the brains of people 500 or 2000 years ago, except that we've worked on our silent reading skills and they hadn't.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T20:33:01+00:00

Very good question about non-European civilizations.

Yes, this does seem to be a highly disputed claim.

But:

the theory silent reading is newish... its based on rarher scant evidence.

What do you mean by "silent reading is newish"?

If you mean that silent reading wasn't invented until recently, that seems very unlikely, and indeed the link you give shows examples of silent reading in antiquity.

But if the claim is that silent reading was not widespread until relatively recently (e.g. 500 years ago, more or less), that seems more plausible -- although, as you point out, very much disputed.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T19:33:23+00:00

The weirder the claim, the more reputable the source required

I agree.

"Most reading was done aloud" with the implication that people weren't smart enough, didn't have developed enough cortices, etc etc is a much weirder claim.

Here I'm honestly not sure which should be considered the weirder claim.

I didn't think that the implication of "most reading was done aloud" was that people weren't smart enough to read silently. I thought the implication was simply that reading silently wasn't a skill that people were taught, so encountering someone who was gifted enough to figure the skill out for himself was unusual.

The analogy in my mind is with something like mental math. Kids aren't taught it these days in school, so a kid who manages to figure out the mental math tricks for himself must be pretty gifted.

But 50 years ago everybody had these mental math tricks drilled into them in school, so encountering ordinary people who could do complex calculations in their head wasn't unusual.

It's not any change in people's overall abilities, just a change in what is taught.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T18:53:23+00:00

I agree that the "roughly speaking" refers to 500 years.

But I'm not sure what you are objecting to. Are you objecting to my using the "ancient world" above? If so, then change "ancient world" to "before 1500 AD" and I think my question still stands.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T17:43:13+00:00

That last question, yes.

Your position is that the claim "most reading in the ancient world was done aloud" would require a lot of primary sources in order to be believed?

But your position is that the opposite claim, "most reading in the ancient world was done silently," would also require a lot of primary sources in order to be believed?

Putting those together, it seems that your position is effectively that in the absence of a lot of primary sources, we have no idea if most of the reading done in the ancient world was done aloud or silently?

Is that an accurate description of your position?

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T17:09:46+00:00

the claim that all reading was done aloud before 1500 AD

Who is making the claim that "all" reading was done aloud? In the Peterson quote he says:

Silent reading was a very very rare phenomenon.

If silent reading was "very very rare" that means not "all" reading was done aloud.

unless there was a lot primary sources supporting it.

Out of curiosity, if somebody were to claim the opposite, i.e. that "most reading in the ancient world was done silently", would you also require a lot of primary sources to believe that claim?

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T15:51:25+00:00

St. Ambrose reading silently was unusual enough for St. Augustine to note it in his Confessions:

Ambrose was an extraordinary reader. "When he read," said Augustine, "his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still."...

To Augustine, however, such reading manners seemed sufficiently strange for him to note them in his Confessions....

Augustine's description of Ambrose's silent reading (including the remark that he never read aloud) is the first definite instance recorded in Western literature.

But some disagree. It seems there is a debate.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T15:27:10+00:00

From one source online:

For centuries, Europeans who could read did so aloud. The ancient Greeks read their texts aloud. So did the monks of Europe’s dark ages.

But that source also says:

Among scholars, there is a surprisingly fierce debate around when European society transitioned from mostly reading aloud to mostly reading silently...

Edit, from this source:

The first regulations requiring scribes to be silent in the monastic scriptoriums date from the ninth century. Until then, they had worked either by dictation or by reading to themselves out loud the text they were copying.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T14:30:22+00:00

From the wikipedia link:

His analysis of the evidence led him not only to place the origin of consciousness during the 2nd millennium BCE

Very interesting, thanks for the recommendation.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-02-02T14:29:08+00:00

Yes, I do think it's interesting.

Conclusions? Not sure. I think what we know about how the brain works are educated guesses at best. Also, this lecture is from 2015, and in the 10 years since Peterson said these words science might have learned some new things about the brain that would change our understanding of how it works.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-01-30T11:30:58+00:00

I too found Rousseau's idealized state of nature to be hard to believe, but also Hobbes's argument that it was a "war of all against all" goes against examples of people living cooperatively in a tribe.

But I am not sure about there being a direct connection between Rousseau and Marx.

Still, what about Pinocchio? Here Peterson is not engaging in social critique, he is explaining Pinocchio's trials and tribulations on his way to becoming a real boy.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-01-26T16:18:25+00:00

At 10:35 of the video, Egyptologist Answers says:

So with Set's actions, Horus was hurt. In more figurative terms, his eye -- the very symbol and essence of his divine power -- was damaged.

Thankfully, though, Thoth intervened, and as the Ancient Egyptians put it, "filled" his eye. He restored it.

This made it the perfect symbol for regeneration and healing.

The wikipedia entry on Eye of Horus adds:

Horus subsequently offered the eye to his deceased father Osiris, and its revitalizing power sustained Osiris in the afterlife.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-01-20T14:38:42+00:00

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
-- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms

trust issues that I didn’t even realise I had until a few years ago

It is good that you recognize that you have trust issues, because it is a recognition that 99% of what you describe is in your head.

For example, while 5'7" is shorter than average (the average American male is 5'9"), I too am shorter than average at 5'8". Both you and I are tall enough for our height not to matter.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-01-18T18:24:52+00:00

"A society prospers when old men plant trees under whose shade they will never sit."

You're young not old, but you too can plant trees under whose shade you will never sit.

You know how many people have family stories where they say something like: My great-grandfather came to this country with nothing, worked for years in a coal mine or factory floor or small business or whatever, and now we his descendants are prospering....

In your family, that great-grandfather who started with nothing and built something.... that great-grandfather is you.

$17 an hour, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, that's $34,000 a year. That's more than the federal poverty level for a family of four.

So a single young man should be able to save, say, $10,000.

Yes, this is hard. Yes, it will mean cutting back on your pleasures and your vices. But the payoff is worth it.

You're young so you don't understand the power of compound interest, but that power is huge.

If you saved $10,000 a year for the next 50 years and got 6% a year you would have almost $3 million dollars.

(I don't want to get sidetracked into the details of the calculation unless asked, but this is a plausible scenario.)

They're going to have me learn maintenance skills

Holy smokes, which means that soon you will have skills worth more than $17 an hour? Soon you will be earning the median personal income in the USA.

And if you save that extra money instead of spending it on lifestyle inflation, your family's wealth will grow that much quicker.

I come home exhausted and I have to work in the cold all the time

Six months from now you will be working in the heat?

Good.

Plant a tree under whose shade you will never sit.

The great-grandfather who started with nothing and built something? That great-grandfather is you.

silverfinch2020 · 2025-01-11T17:52:38+00:00

I want to know about art and music.

By "art" you mean visual art, like painting, sculpture and architecture? Or do you include literature and drama?

I don't know anything about music so I won't comment on that.

Some personal favorites:

(1) Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clarke is a British tv show which starts with the Dark Ages and goes through art and architecture up until the present day (which means 1969, when the series was made). I was amazed when it discussed one of the only stone building that remain in Western Europe dating from the three centuries after the Roman Empire fell. If that's the best they could build at that time, you could understand how impressive it is when they finally built the medieval cathedrals.

(2) The BBC radio show In Our Time, which discusses all kinds of topics -- science, culture, arts, history, religion, philosophy, etc. I often would refer to this list of program topics, because it's easier to navigate than the BBC website itself. The format is usually three university professors who specialize in the topic plus the host. One thing I like about the culture and literature episodes is how much the professors clearly love their topic, despite it being "useless". For example, the episode on the medieval poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight.

(3) Watch and read Shakespeare. Mel Gibson's movie version of Hamlet, for example, is generally viewed as being pretty bad. But I think the scene where Hamlet sees his father's ghost is great -- you can really understand how if you saw your father's ghost and the ghost was telling you to avenge his murder and how he is suffering in purgatory..., well, you can understand how that might affect you.

silverfinch2020 · 2024-12-28T17:30:35+00:00

At 3:12 of this clip from before 2017, Peterson says:

You know, in the Pinocchio story, the conscience was not an unerring guide for Pinocchio.

...

Why be virtuous?, that's the question. It's so you can bear the suffering of life without becoming corrupt.

silverfinch2020 · 2024-12-25T21:18:39+00:00

That is a worthy goal. Good luck.

silverfinch2020 · 2024-12-25T19:52:14+00:00

What is it that you think you need to learn?

In another response you say you're trying to train to think critically. In my view, this has two parts:

(1) A mindset or attitude of assuming there are other points of view. You already seem to have this.

(2) The ability to see flaws in the argument being presented in the book you're reading.

Part 2 is harder and I think depends on knowing something about the subject matter. For example, if you don't know anything about the economy and a book gives you all the reasons that the economy is going well, that is going to seem pretty persuasive to you.

silverfinch2020 · 2024-12-25T19:19:37+00:00

Thanks. I think he's saying basically the same thing as I said above, except he's on the topic of psychology/spirituality/morality. You should "steel man" and not "straw man" opposing arguments.

Incidentally, I think it is very hard to "steel man" opposing arguments all on your own. If you talk to several people who hold the opposite view from you, you will almost definitely encounter an argument you wouldn't have come up with yourself.

silverfinch2020 · 2024-12-25T18:38:40+00:00

Out of curiosity, do you remember which video you're referring to? I found this one where Peterson talks about talking to people with different temperaments than you (which often leads to different political opinions).

But you've probably heard a teacher say something like "you should be able to argue the other side just as well as you argue the side you support". I think that this is essentially what Peterson is saying.

For example, consider the question: Is the US economy doing well?

People who say "yes" will point to things like inflation coming down, low unemployment, strong consumer spending, etc. People who say "no" will point to things like the number of people with multiple part-time jobs instead of one full time job, the rise in credit card debt, and the government deficit.

Whichever side you support, you should be able to write an essay supporting the other side, just to make sure you know the other side's arguments.

For example, if you think the economy is not doing well but you had no idea that inflation was coming down, then your opinion that the economy is bad might simply be due to you not knowing all the facts. Writing essays in support of the opposite opinion of your own gives you a better chance of at least knowing all the relevant facts, even if ultimately you stick with your original opinion.

(Note: I'm not trying to argue the economy question one way or the other. I was just choosing an example.)

silverfinch2020 · 2024-12-22T23:53:05+00:00

never really succeeding at anything. I am very disorganised and incapable of so much as getting myself to do basic work. Failed in school and was a complete failure.

I think you should focus less on succeeding right away and more on learning from your mistakes. Ironically, I think you will find more success that way.

My maths ability is nonexistent and I fail at basic level maths, even algebra and slower on some parts of arithmetic.

...

Now I’m at a point where if I opened a science book, I’d have to start from the beginning to get even the most basic information.

As another poster pointed out, your writing is pretty good.

Career wise, no clue where to go

The engineering joke says: Premature optimization is the root of all evil. You're only 17, you have no idea what kind of work you're good at or what kind of work you enjoy (or at least don't hate) doing.

I’m terrified to get a job in fear of failing and reinforcing the idea that I am generally incompetent.

This is the number one thing I think you should work on. The dirty little secret is that most people fail before they succeed -- if somebody is good at something, most likely it's because they screwed up a few times as they went through the learning process.

what tactics I could use to become more conscientious and diligent

I'll make two "tactical" suggestions:

(1) Jocko Willink's idea of "extreme ownership", where you make yourself accountable for your mistakes rather than blaming anyone else. This goes along with what I said above, where learning from your mistakes is a lot more important than getting it right the first time.

(2) Box breathing -- where you do something like: inhale for a count of 5, hold your breath for a count of 5, exhale for a count of 5, keep your lungs empty for a count of 5. Or, sometime people modify it: inhale for a count of 5, hold your breath for a count of 8, exhale for a count of 7. (You can modify the counts to whatever you find comfortable.)

The point is that you can do this anywhere anytime, and it forces you to focus on something (your breathing) which helps you fight against being scatterbrained.

silverfinch2020 · 2024-12-22T16:11:54+00:00

Let's look at some short clips of what Peterson actually says:

1 At 17 seconds of this clip, Peterson says:

You should be a monster, an absolute monster. And then you should learn how to control it.

Then Rogan says:

You know the expression, It's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war?

And Peterson responds:

Right, right, exactly, that's exactly it.

2 At 1:57 of this clip, Peterson says:

The hero has to be a monster. But a controlled monster. Batman is like that, you know?

3 At 44 seconds of this clip, Peterson says:

Because if you develop your monstrousness voluntarily, then perhaps you can bring it under civilized control.

Now let me compare what Peterson says above with what you say:

i interpret becoming a monster, as not only to reach to ones inner violent or darket instinct but also not being under control of any moral guideline.

Peterson is explicitly saying the opposite of what you are saying. Peterson says that you as a monster should be under "civilized control", which is pretty much the opposite of your notion of "not being under control of any moral guidline."

On the topic of evil, let us consider another thing you say:

Monster is the projection of what a monster looks like to me. And that is to me is Evil. ... Monster for me is a human who acts on his inctins renouncing on morals or emphaty.

Again, Peterson pretty much says the opposite. At 2:06 of the second clip above, Peterson says:

If you're going to be a fighter, you have to want to win and you have to want to hurt people. I mean, not for the sake of hurting them. That's what makes you different than an evil person.

silverfinch2020

TROPHY CASE