Steven Pinker on Noam Chomsky & Sam Harris 

Also really impressed with the intelligence of the questions. And pinning pinker down with specifics in the question.

Pinker is great but all of the questions are leading

Grgrory

@Lancelot Arc What's so terribly wrong with using the label 'expert' upon an interesting or professional person in general, for describing the different positions of interviewer and interviewee? He wasn't talking specificly about Pincker, but if your virtual laughter was meant derogatory towards Pincker being called an 'expert', just say so and explain yourself.

Expert in what? What is Pinker's expertise? Life?

abolishing borders (which means abolishing nation states) and openly calling for a solcialist revolution by dismantling the "racist, patriachal and oppressive "economic system and social norms is pretty radical. how much more radical can they even be?

Grrakkh nobody serious wants to abolish borders. What the educated left criticizes is that immigrants are often used as scapegoats for every crime that happens in the US. Also, a wall is not only costly, does it really help? And: there are real refugees from Latin America that suffer from dictatorial regimes. Shouldn’t you at least try to help them? The alternative is returning them which is against human rights if they are threatened. You are talking about a radical minority. Reforms like access to health care, acces to education also for those who aren’t millionaires, protection of workers’ and consumers’ rights, advocating for regulated markets that prevent monopolization and corporatism (companies bypassing the people by writing or dictating the laws to politicians who they pay) - these all are not a “radical socialist revolution”. We should stop branding everythimg with fancy terms that have a meaning to broad to be precise. For example, “socialist” can mean Sovjet socialist (very bad), it can also mean Social-Democrat (the guys that advocate for easy access to education, health care etc). The same with “Capitalism”. Everybody sane is for private property. But it can also mean Corporatism. We should talk about the concrete issues. The rest are just terms. Right and left are also just words. We should focus on the issues and discuss pros and cons.

@@charlesbourgoigne2130 "nobody wants to abolish borders" this is just disingenuous. Beyond that, all the stuff you outlined as not radical, arent radical obviously. Theyve been normal left wing causes for a long time. Something very different and truly worrisome is happening culturally right now and every ex-communist expat is telling us to be careful and concerned. Maybe "socialist revolution" isnt the most proper academic definition but im pretty sure you understand what hes trying to say and handwaving it isnt going to help you cross that aisle.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GqgOvzUeiAA.html Check out Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather. Canada's "Greatest Canadian" Tommy Douglas. There are tons of RU-vid videos about him. He was Canada's "Bernie" eighty years ago.

What the left have never understood is that, before you start redistributing wealth, you first have to create it. Hospital beds and welfare are bought by the taxes of the rich, not by governments. Governments don't have any money.

The centrists in the US would be far right in most countries, ..

@@psivil.disobedience In Europe certainly, but European centrism appears to be far left capitulation to Americans.

@J A radical contrarian, more like it?

Exactly

Jordan is against enlightenment principles and progress because he is sympathetic to religion? That is one of the dumbest thing I've ever heard Steve say. Religion is not in the way of scientific progress, in fact, it was at the core of the enlightenment revolution.

@@user-nc9pc3gr4c Just becase you dont understand/agree with it doesnt mean its dumb. Not sure where you live but on my planet religion was almost always in the way of scientific progress. At the time of enlightmement religion was at the core of everything...

@@ohrej Hmm. Maybe a little ignorant. The enlightenment partially grew out of christianity and its values. I don't think Jordan is diametrically opposed, but he is critical of the somewhat 'religious' rationality and think we should temper it with mythological wisdom. Or something like that.

@@user-nc9pc3gr4c Historically, many religious despots didn't allow for science or education to take place, because of the threat of forward thinking, progress, new ideas and, of course, the inevitable wake up and shake down of such despots.

@@Live0nnn I would agree, unless of course it served their interest. But at the time of the enlightenment, I don't think anyone was getting burnt at the stake. We had a few atheist, but most were Christian and achieved great progress. I just think it is unnecessary to bring that into the discussion one way or the other. Jordan sticks to science like glue.

I agree with this. I also clicked on the vid here because I was curious to hear Steven Pinker's thoughts these days on his quondam professor, Avram Noam Chomsky.

G Standen funny how he doesn’t bring up his trips on his buddy Epstein’s “Lolita Express” jet, or how he was friends with him long AFTER his 2008 conviction of underage rape.

B J He was never “friends” with Epstein.

@@noiseofknowing8964 Just a client.

Richard Metzger At most Pinker accepted a ride on Epstein’s jet with several other academics. Epstein was not on the jet at the time. Other than that Pinker never took a dime from him. I don’t agree with everything Pinker says either, but I only criticize those ideas, these other accusations are pretty thin.

Whom does he take seriously? One of his main revelations was defeated by Daniel Everett when he studied the Pirahas. Never trust arrogance.

I stopped taking Chomsky seriously years ago.

Sapolsky is an amazing scholar. Few people understand the human brain like he does. I have yet to read Behave, but I need to. I have watched all of his 2011 Lectures on Human Behavioral Biology (great activity during last Spring's COVID) shutdown.

I have to ask, just out of curiosity. This isn’t by any means bait and this question is specifically for you. Why was the word loved put into parentheses in your comment?

Capitals and quotation Marks, I dont see brackets anywhere. TOE just seem dodgy to me, they'll know why. Steve's funny, a political bullshiter sitting pretty in the US. I call him Mr. Blinker for he'll try to put blinkers on his Audience ever chance he gets. 6 mins in and the vomit is almost never ending.

Hide your kids hide your wife!

The power of the modern state to wreak violence is definitely much greater, and therefore much more important to keep under strict limits because its potential is genocidal and on a scale a tribe can never achieve.

Relative to the population, tribal violence is much bigger. Each individual is much more likely to die from violence in tribal culture. Each individual! The bigger size of states does not change this refutation of commie peace and love. Also, all societies, including tribal, have states. Anthropologists discovered implicit, subtle states in kinship and clan relations in tribal cultures, even tho there is no formally separate state.

@@TeaParty1776 Relative to the population each individual is much more likely to die from violence in tribal culture than in a state, at the hands of people within their tribe or from another tribe? Tribes tend to be isolated from each other and so there can be a great deal of the fear in the unknown in dealing with other tribes, but in the well adjusted tribes which are plenty you'd just be appalled by the commie peace and love.

@@urganodevotaton > well adjusted tribes That sounds like Margaret Meads Leftist willingless to be defrauded by tribal people who evaded discussing widespread rape.

@@urganodevotaton True. except for your mysterious well-adjusted tribes. Rational Optimism-Matt Ridley Better Angels-Steven Pinker Capitalism-Ayn Rand

There were NO bonus questions at 47.00. That was when he signed off -

You might have had a chance getting them several years ago, but not recently. I don't think Pinker 's very happy with the current state of affairs in the US, concerning the one(s) in power right now. But also concerning issues like progressive taxes, welfare, gun laws, racism, environment and climate, etc.

is that why he was on the Epstein plane?

Yes. It is always enlightening when listening to him. Pinker is one of the sane voices out there. He defended James Damore as well, when the media tried to paint him as a sexist caveman.

Virginia Roberts accuses him of rape on Epstein's island in her book. He denies it saying he is too much of a feminist to do so. She describes him in her book as Steven [Redacted], a professor from Harvard with mad scientist white hair.

@@turquoiseafro1520 She was talking about a different Steven.

also takes money from jeffrey epstein lol

Working on it. - Curt

But they would have to convince the guest to do that extra work, and I would imagine some guests would balk at jumping through any production hoops due to their busy schedules without some incentive. They're probably just grateful to have the guest agree to the interview and wouldn't want to scare them off with homework assignments. Perhaps if the interviewer sent a guy to assist the guest in the event they can't be bothered.

It would have taken quite a bit of work to sync, in this case, as there are frequent dropouts throughout the interview. Those would cause a delay and mismatch between the audio and the video.

@@johnhauber6458 its basic editing...

@@johnhauber6458 If you know how to edit video/audio at all, this is one of the simplest things to do. You just align video and audio once and it'll be good for the entire conversation.

I wonder if Dr Pinker still thinks the right is more dangerous after the left tried to cancel culture his ass

Thank you

Thanks, found this 27mins in, now I can skip to the end.

1. Canada has got a lot right. Not all, but a lot. If it were not so damned cold half the year the population would be a lot larger. 2. Who cares? Anyone with any intellectual curiosity will appreciate the excellent quality of the questions and Dr. Pinkerton's thoughtful and well considered answers. I was a fan of Dr. Pinkerton and even more so after this interview. Kudos to the interviewers on the high quality and well researched questions. I see a bright future for you both.

Dude... pa-leese - the term *Nazi* is a proper noun and should therefore be capitalised... ;-)

@@charlesbourgoigne2130 except normativity in language is a contingent social phenomena, whereas math is universal

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hslPNjqcXMk.html

: It would be nice if "math" (*in general) were "universal" today. But it is not. There are many different mathematicians and each subbranch of mathematics tends to have significant debates. Of course historically it is even more true that "math" in general was not universal except in the most basic sense of arithmetic. We now use a modified version of Leibnitz's notation system for calculus, not Newton's notation system, and that means they were not 100 % the same.

I think things have definitely been improving since civilization started. But I do think a lot of people are missing some major elements of life that existed before civilization. A major element of “work” was hunting, which you did with friends and family. Life was far more brutal, dangerous, and physically less comfortable, but living was also more meaningful and vivid, I would think. It’s definitely a trade off, and maybe we’re much better off, all things considered. It’s also possible the future will veer from the current trajectory. China is a rising, non-democratic power. We can hope a burgeoning middle class will transform it into a democracy, but new technology changes the dynamics. Technology might ultimately strengthen government power, allow for authoritarianism to take hold everywhere. What better tool is there to counteract rebellious sentiments in a population than AI. Technology changes dynamics, so we can assume all the forces that have propelled us toward our better angels will continue

Sean Matthew King I do not think an argument can be made live had more meaning during hunting gathering days versus today. When children and those giving birth died regularly, when life consisted many of worry, doubt and no security, when life was mainly focussed on mere survival ... there clearly was less time to be given to meaningful pursuits. Combines with the sheer level of ignorance a lot of meaning was misguided. Today, the availability of free time is astronomical in comparison. Of course how individuals chose to utilize that is up to them, but there is no doubt the amount devoted to meaningful personalized pursuits is unheralded. That’s free time, as for hours spent working, there again is not doubt right now there is simply no comparison devoted to meaningful pursuits. Be it creators or innovators. Millions are focussed on eradicating illness for example yet others compose projects which ignite or stir the soul of billions. There is no comparison. It sounds like your painting an idyllic romanticized notion of life back then while ignoring realities strengths today. As for the concern over technology. Why is it that every generation concludes that today things are different? That somehow what we are on the cusp of is not akin to what our ancestors in the past faced? To be sure, things aren’t the same but the forces are in many ways. I see no reason to fret about the potential benefits and overall trajectory of humanity as a whole given our increasing technology, in fact I see it as potentially propelling the net positives we have witnessed so far.

@@seanmatthewking hey sean, while i agree with you that living standards, health, wellbeing, education, human rights, have all gotten so much better since hunter gatherer times, I think you might be romanticising just how tough, short and unforgiving hunter gatherer tribal life was. If by meaningful you mean that hunting and foraging and being v close to the natural world is more fulfilling than say the average office worker's safe, sterile environment, I think you are grossly underestimating how mortally dangerous and constantly stressful a life foraging out in the wild would be. Firstly, you wouldn't be doing it with 'friends and family'. You'd be doing it in a hierarchical, physically enforced group of often violent men. Agression breeds aggression, and this would be no walk in the park picking daisies. There are examples of stone age men found in their cave habitats with their heads stoved in, from behind, suggesting that intra-tribal disagreements and politics were lethal. Just as you see with our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees. I might have thought along the same lines as you Sean before I read Pinker's book, Better Angels, but he lays the evidence out clearly - tribal hunter/gatherer life was actually MORE violent and you had a much higher chance of a violent death than compared to agricultural settlements, then ancient civilisations, and so on. The trend actually goes to a DECREASE in violent deaths per 100,000 capita of the population, as humans progress from hunter gatherer life to modern civilisation. Not the other way. This is partly because tribal warfare was rife in hunter gatherer life, as evidenced by a whole body of anthropological studies on tribes from around the world. Also Sean I think you're romanticising how utterly nasty a winter in a cave woulid be. And then throw in some hungry bears, some tribal neighbours who want to kill you and rape your women, and you've just noticed that the cut on your leg that you got some time ago is really starting to stink and antibiotics don't exist yet. Really, there was absolutely nothing better or more meaningful about hunter gatherer life, Sean :) What amazes me is that humans used to be so tough and heroic that we actually managed to get through those unbelievably harsh times and come out the other side to where we are now. It's an incredible story really, especially for a species that is so prone to bias, prejudice, superstition etc. Anyway, READ PINKER'S BOOK, Better Angels, it's simply fantastic, you will not regret it!

1. Why do you think they had less free time? Everything I read suggests they worked less. 2. And what they did for work was done with friends and family. You’re right that it’s possible to find work today that’s as meaningful as one can imagine, but I like to tap about numbers--what percent of people find their work meaningful? Yes, it’s possible to live a life that’s the best of both worlds, where you’re safe, happy, comfortable, living with meaning, etc. But this is beside the point. 3. “It sounds like your painting an idyllic romanticized notion of life back then while ignoring realities strengths today.“ I don’t know what you’re basing this on. I said “Life was far more brutal, dangerous, and physically less comfortable“-how does that acknowledgment fit with your description? I’ll add despair to the list of negative traits. The death around you triggers despair. 4. But this leads me back to my main point: one can live with danger, pain and suffering, and despair while still leading a meaningful life. In fact, I think these things generate meaning. Especially when you have tradition developed over thousands of years that helps you translate these feelings into meaning. Assuming you accept evolution, you understand that our yearning for meaning developed with hunter-gatherer society. If that’s where it’s yearning developed, I would imagine that’s where it’s fulfillment can be found. I don’t want to speculate too much deeper, because I’m sure there are anthropological studies on these topics. As for the future: I haven’t concluded anything about where the future is going. Where it’s going depends on the specific forces. Why has technology so far aided us in improving society, and why do we foresee those forces as continuing? Many trends have began and faded. This one has had a large arc, but it’s longevity doesn’t itself tell us anything about the future. Since we developed nuclear weapons, there has always been uncertainty about our future. Look how long it takes us to address a problem like climate change. Surely that should give your optimism some pause. Assuming climate change isn’t as the worst projections (not a warranted assumption, but for the sake of my argument), doesn’t this tell us something about the ability of global civilization to avoid large scale disasters? A specific concern I already mentioned was the threat of AI combined with authoritarianism. AI can be used to more effectively control populations. Corporations are already keeping massive data files on people and learning how to convince you more effectively to buy shit, and the technology is still very primitive. One AI surpasses human intelligence in all the key ways, it can improve itself quicker than humans can, which results in exponential growth in improvement. Depending on who develops it and how far behind others are, the group that controls it (if even possible) will have the power to take over the world soon enough. It’s bad news when one group has uncontested power. Things like this have happened before on different scales. Guns, for example, were a game changer. But AI could be much different. What I’m talking about are technological changes that redistribute how power is redistributed. I don’t know at all how things will play out, but you can’t assume all technological changes will result in positive changes without articulating a mechanism for why that would be. And let’s be clear, I’m not asserting that things will play out in a negative way. I can make guesses based on why I know, but I acknowledge my ignorance is too vast to think my guesses hold much water.

“If by meaningful you mean that hunting and foraging and being v close to the natural world is more fulfilling than say the average office worker's safe, sterile environment, I think you are grossly underestimating how mortally dangerous and constantly stressful a life foraging out in the wild would be.” I think meaning is distinct from danger. I concede I don’t know enough about the dynamics within a tribe to say how fulfilling it would be. “You'd be doing it in a hierarchical, physically enforced group of often violent men.” Since my entire argument was about meaning, the intro-tribal dynamics is the most significant part to dwell on. The rest isn’t news to me. I’ve listened to most of the book on audio, btw. Just not recently. Anyway, short response I know. Don’t have time right now.

Pinker is a liar liars can't make actual arguments

@Lying Eyes For your lack of knowledge of informed consent, perhaps you should read the 5 filters and try to apply them for a couple days. Our recent "Iran drone" b.s. is a great example, we've got an embargo on Iran we've surrounded them militarily they shoot down a drone (possibly in their air-space) and suddenly they're an aggressor....an unmanned drone? C'mon. Just try looking at the filters for like a week you'll start seeing it. I agree with your armchair sentiment but from the left. Anarchists like Chomsky (I mean the word in a technical sense) are just classical liberals who read Kropotkin one time. They've missed the whole point. And they've totally disengaged from Marx, who knew that getting the State to act in a way that helped everyday working people had to happen in the more developed countries 1st. (And that's exactly why he thought that movement would start in Britain and that's exactly what we've seen, we bombed Vietnam back into the stone age and almost nuked early china) if socialism doesn't create a peaceful first world, than socialism may never happen. But Chomsky has no solutions, no anti-fa, no fight, no methodology, no plan, no vanguard, and nobody he'll even campaign for. All he has is criticism *of a system he tacitly supports through passivity*

@Lying Eyes Come on dude, what are you even talking about? Democracy itself is a collective movement which only exist in the degree to which it is demanded FROM THE BOTTOM UP. I can't think of any example in history where the advantaged or powerful just woke up one day and gave the peasants below them a seat at the table. These things have to be demanded. True, in modern industrial societies just the threat of disruption is often sufficient to sway the elite into compromise, but all movements require a minimal collective engagement before the pendulum swings in their favor. Democracy is messy and fleeting.

@Lying Eyes I'm sorry I misinterpreted you, didnt realize we agreed.

@Lying Eyes So let's look at what that constitution looks like. when it refers to "we the people" what it is actually referring to is white land owners. This is not a controversial statement. Going from that, to where the us is now, and "we the people" represents huge swaths of different people, is the result of a long and difficult bottom up struggle, including the labour movement and civil rights movement.

Why? He had nothing to do with that. Try judging people on actual EVIDENCE rather than the ravings of idiots. D.A., J.D. (lawyer) NYC

If you do, ask him who killed Epstein!

The Epstein thing can be called bigger than JFK. Way. Bigger.

Read "Civilized to Death" by Christopher Ryan. Pinker's understanding of "human progress" are not at all mainstream anthropological consensus. He is just another psychologist speaking about topics that he has little-to-no expertise in. What's up with Psychology? Really seems to pump out a lot of academics that embody the Dunning Kruger effect.

@@brocklewis9693 interesting. I think psychology fills some of the space left by religion, hence the rise of popular psychologists. Can you please link to any succinct summaries of what you consider to be a mainstream anthropological consensus? Id be interested to follow that up before diving into a book. Thanks

I raise you the the brutal paleolithic,all former soviet republics after the collapse,many latin american countries that use nordic soft ass policies in violent societies(Uruguay,Argentina,Venezuela,etc). I could go on and on.Anarcho syndicalism would be a huge step back in human progress. Im from latin america and I can guarentee you that there nothing more horriying that growing up seeing murder with inmpunity.We need a state willing to rehabilite those who commit minor crime and punish those who harm or kill inocent citizen.All socialist countries had death penalty for a reason.Tankies knew whats up Oh and 1930 Spain was FAR from crimeless.Franco the fascist won because the republic was too busy infighting.Anarchotards vs socialists

Was the cause of the absence of crime the absence of police or vice versa?

I thought someone might ask that ;) It was actually the absence of money, therefore the absence of greed, therefore the absence of crime, and therefore the police went extinct . See Living Utopia 1997.

@@CometComment I'll check that out. Thanks for the info ^^

No problem. Always nice to find someone who genuinely wants to learn, instead of someone who claims to already know everything and just throws out insults like anotards or something.

I wonder if you would feel the same way had you received the same education under a different professor, not that you're biased or anything XD

@@Powd3r81 I agree with most of what Pincker says, but never had him as a professor. He 's one of the many (foreign) scientists that publish and appear in media that I found interesting and educational. I bought and read his book The Blank Slate long ago, and made me rethink and change my earlier ideas/views somewhat.

Being willing to define terms is no guarantee that those definitions make sense.

You're

You're

BoneyScribes Yes you caught a spelling error of mine Have a great day

@@BoneyScribes To paraphrase a great thinker of our times: your spiritually illiterate if an ortographical mistake catches you're attention.

Where was that?

@@johnnytocino9313 Texas

Meh, the interviewers sounds like children, what do you expect?

How did you get through academia with a degree without reading Neitzsche praise Aryans and Vikings? Sad. Still this is silly *the Nazi took allot of their inspiration from America* ...litterally modeling their racism off of ideas here, and modeling laws for Jewish oppression off of Jim Crow. Nazism is at home in America the left's fear and reaction no matter how crazy is merely the realization of that fact.

Don’t thank him - just give him some supple young girls on whom he can secrete all his gross fluids D:

Pinker is a lightweight. He impresses weak minds/

Read Carl Jung’s response to Nietzsche. The issue is that it is unwise to follow a value system just because you ought to. It is better to become consciously aware of oneself and go through a trans-valuation process. If we don’t go through such a process, even what we consider a genuine value can become a completely one sided stupidity. Right now I see one-sided value systems as one of the worst bulwarks to human flourishing.

@@rickmarlow3389 You should not make such statements in the form you did where you proclaim your opinion as if it was a fact but then provide no explanation or proof or even an argument to backup your opinion. When you do that it implies that you are not a thinker. If you had prepended your statement with "I think that", it would probably be perceived better but as it stands most people will think just the opposite of your proclamation since it is perceived as simply a statement with no thought behind it. And perhaps perception is reality in this case.

Exactly. This pro Russia nonsense was one of the most prolific examples of political propaganda warfare our young nation has ever experienced.

Me to I lost interest after it .. I think many scientists nowadays tell you things that they know for a fact it’s not true.

The only people I have seen in America that seem to be pro Russian, are the fools running around waving the hammer and sickle flag. And I have yet to personally see anyone on the so called right, now automatically called “The Alt Right” waving such a flag. I have on the other hand seen multiple people who appeared to be on the left or sympathetic to the left waving this flag while they engaged in civil unrest. The fact that I saw this on national news though could simply just be another form of propaganda and misinformation spread to the public. As ANY and ALL news sources are Bias in their own way, especially “mainstream”.

Indeed, he does straw man a lot here; trying to imply that American Leftists today want to replicate... North Korea? Venezuela? The USSR? What? And it's entirely unclear to me who he MEANS by "Leftists"--all of the good christian Socialists that I know are nothing like what he is describing. Straw-men all around, indeed. It's sad that Pinker is the best that moderates can muster, but it's not surprising. They have nothing. They have even less than conservatives.

@Sweet Pea It is no small thing however that America is as diverse as it is and gets along as well as it does -- this being an outlier in world history... America is one of the most ethnically diverse, harmonious societies in the history of the world. Compare us with the roiling racial tensions of France, which is far more bigoted. Or to the ethnic homogeneity of Mexico, which is far less diverse. Ethnic minorities from around the world continually line up to come here -- precisely because America is so welcoming to so many diverse peoples, despite its past sins that still ramify today... There is no nation in the world that doesn't have fraught histories of groups at one point or another oppressing each other.

It certainly makes no sense to consider authoritarian leftism/"progressivism" to be in any meaningful sense liberal.Yes, progressives no longer openly advocate for eugenics or scientific racism, but the impulse toward coercive social engineering from which these abominations sprang remain.

​@@douglascarkuff1969 Socialism and authoritarianism are completely antithetical. The USSR called itself Socialist for the same reason the Nazis did; it plays well. The USA played into the USSR calling itself Socialist because they were smart propagandists and realized that if the citizens in the USA actually knew what Socialism was, their would likely be a political revolution. Liberalism =/= Socialism. Socialism =/= Authoritarianism. Socialism is about Democracy in the Workplace. The USSR being labeled "Communist" is one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century. Authoritarian? Absolutely. Centrally planned? Absolutely. Socialism? Not even remotely close.

I went to two art schools. There was not a rejection of “the canon” in either school. There was an expansion of the canon both in literature and visual art. But people study western art as the core still. And as far as I am concerned the western canon does not start with the enlightenment. If you start there with literature you miss Chaucer, and Shakespeare, Dante, and Eschenbach as well as ancient epics Virgil, Homer, Beowulf etc. Why start in the enlightenment?

Matthew Kopp not to mention the republic by Plato, seminal work for classical liberalism

@@brocklewis9693 I understand that you wish to believe this, but socialism is inherently authoritarian, since it does not rely on free individuals making their own decisions. This is the inherent flaw that causes all socialist societies to become more authoritarian. I understand that socialists like to ignore history and play an elaborate game of pretend where all the fascist and communist states that oppressed, enslaved, tortured, and murdered people weren't really socialist, but it's a lie. They absolutely were doing their best to be socialist states and dealt with individuals who tried to liberal as the enemies to the system they were.

Pollution is handled by the courts ... extremely badly. Poor people living in polluted areas have no realistic chance of defeating a company with a battery of lawyers. Voluntary taxation? Go read “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” by Thomas Piketty to see what just weak taxation leads to. You’re an ideologue in love with abstractions which fail in the real world.

@@lxgaucher agree to disagree mate. ideologue yes - mine is a moral belief that initiating violence is wrong. The interesting thing is that most human beings accept this in their personal lives as "don't steal, don't kill, don't lie." Libertarians simply don't give the state a pass on the ethic. I would suggest Murray Rothbard's "Man Economy and State" but here is an Austrian take on Picketty if anyone here is interested in a critique from the other side: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aL90pISm7Y8.html

Claim on property is also initiation of violence. Because what is the starting point of any property? It's "This is mine, don't fuck with it or I will kill you". That's use of violence.

Oh yes, let's take everyone to court. Surely oil companies can't buy judges the way insurance companies bought Joe Biden

@@Apjooz It's the homesteading principle (original appropriation of previously unused or abandoned natural factors of production) - originally by John Locke

I guess your mind blocked out that him saying that he only thinks the right is worse is because they have more power right now. Which implies he thinks the nature of the left is worse right now

@@kingtigertank42 Don't recall that, but if he did say it or implied the left is worse right now, I would disagree anyway. And if he did say that or implied what you think he implied, then I would temper my praise of him. I find that the right is much worse, and by a number of metrics. For example, if you look up statistics of right-wing vs. left-wing violence at the moment, you'll find right-wing violence is a far worse problem. But I also think my broader point remains important, namely, that if you only ever seriously criticize the left you end up being a propagandist or useful idiot for the right.

If you look at things as they are at this moment i think its quite hard to argue that the left is worse in politics, since the right has the power at the moment, what I think Jordan Peterson is doing is saying that the left will become worse later so we should do something about it now before its too late. But putting Jordan Peterson to the side for a moment, it's quite clear that the problems on the left with them playing identity politics is the reason they lost the election to Trump in 2016, since they essentially abandoned the working class (obviously not all the left but certainly what mattered of it) adn even those that didnt abandon the working class have still been forced to play identity politics (i.e Bernie Sanders), so I would say the most important thing to do now would be to fix the issues on the left so they have a leg to stand on in an election and then maybe they can get something done, otherwise the power is just gonna stay on the right, nothings gonna change. I mean you can stand around all day complaining about the right, but you've still gotta do something about it.

@@theredking9458 I agree the excesses of identity politics did a disservice to the left in the 2016 election. Partly this is because the right-wing propaganda machine is very good at leveraging misdeeds by fringe people on the left as an attack on the left as a whole. While everyone's paying attention to unhinged college kids yelling at their professor, they forget that there continues to be a huge faction of Christian fundamentalists on the right with very scary and completely irrational worldviews. I should add: the Democrats abandoned the working class well before identity politics gained the huge prominence it has today. That happened decades ago.

For me personally, the most penetrating argument I've ever heard against the right came from Peterson. I still think of his response all the time a year after I've heard it, and it's taught me to see many right wing tendencies as pride. You can see the topic clearly invokes his passion in the clip, it's something he genuinely cares about. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XmcQ6WHaSks.html

Please. Peterson's "bold" stance against "compelled speech" was neither brave, nor principled. It was a way for him to re-frame the fact he had told his students he wouldn't use their preferred pronouns, which made him look transphobic. It was also a convenient issue that happened to align with his right-wing values. If Peterson starts standing up for free speech for critics of Israel, or for Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the US anthem, then I'll consider taking him seriously.

People always justify the views of reactionaries like Peterson, it's only when you talk about leftist do we suddenly say "oh they were right about this but all their other ideas are evil"

@@georgesprat9697 Perhaps we have each been exposed to different versions of Jordan Peterson. I think his stance regarding the legislation in his Province was VERY brave. Many right leaning (that is not radical left) academics have had their careers derailed or have been fired for politically incorrect views on campus in Canada. That he became so famous, so quickly was testament that his vocal position was newsworthy because it was rare, nearly singular. And, we all know that individuals standing up alone (on the left or right) are easily squished by the system. He was very brave, and principled, and risked much. Oh, by the way, if you want to see him voice support for Colin Kaepernick, check out his Twitter feed, "Dr Jordan B Peterson", 2017 Aug 13, where he expressed surprise at a sympathetic CNN article: "CNN (?!) Colin Kaepernick and James Damore deserve credit for putting careers on the line". And, of course he would stand up for free speech for critics of Israel, because he stands up for free speech, period. If you want to listen to his rather tentative, "middle-of-the-road", non radical views on Israel and Palestine, you could watch RU-vid video "Jordan Peterson on Jerusalem and Israel/Palestine", ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-o9BbQyg7zwQ.html. Maybe these are not your views, but I do not think they disqualify him from being "taken seriously".

@@jfuite I'm very familiar with Jordan Peterson because I followed his rise to fame from the start. I was on an anti-SJW binge at the time, so that video of students protesting him was in my feed the day it was posted. That video was the start of his rise to fame. As an aside, as much as watching bizarre and seemingly unhinged student activists on campus was weirdly fascinating, in a car-wreck kind of way, I never fully bought into the moral panic that "post-modern neo-marxists" were taking over various segments of society. I'm sure it's possible that some right-leaning academics have had their careers derailed, but that might be simply because there's lots of academics in the world, so you can always find examples of outliers. Even then, which ones did you have in mind, and what made them lose their careers (or get derailed)? Jordan Peterson rose to fame initially because he rode the wave of anti-SJW popularity on RU-vid that existed at the time (and still exists? I don't know...) by courting controversy against trans activists. It increased even more because he argued effectively against feminist talking points in his Cathy Newman interview, and the cultural right (AKA the "alt-light", formerly "alt-right" until Richard Spencer highjacked the term) abhors modern feminism and all the identity politics that have come with it. His popularity continued because he's articulate and very adept at speaking with deepity (like, e.g. Deepak Chopra). Google "deepity" if you haven't read the term before. His fame is NOT a result of his "bravery". It was opportunistic, and he's a talented speaker. Your evidence that Peterson has voiced support for left-wing voices being silenced is weak. His tweet of the CNN article you cite was likely because he was standing up for James Damore, which he's done ad nauseam. The fact the article referenced Colin Kaepernick was probably irrelevant to Peterson. Whether or not Peterson's views on the Isreal-Palestine conflict are reasonable says nothing about whether he's stood up for critics of Israel being silenced. I'm willing to give him the credit that if pressed, he would probably give a principled answer and say no voices should be silenced, no matter the political view being expressed. But if he was truly a principled free-speech supporter, he also wouldn't have filed frivolous defamation lawsuits against people who've said mean things about him (and one of these people said it in private!).

@@georgesprat9697 "Please. Peterson's "bold" stance against "compelled speech" was neither brave, nor principled." I'll go you one better - his stance against "compelled speech" was a fraud - a total shuck. It was based on his reaction to a non-event - a complete myth (in the bad sense of the word).

How about NZ Maori in 1881 at Parihaka?

Every time the left has gone off the tracks it's because of people like Steven Pinker who encourage *ignoring the left as a global movement*

j man every time hey? Cool. Who is gonna try and get the right back on track?

@@mykotron The left or the right? I think Jordan Peterson despite being part of the alt-right pipeline causes some normal conservatives to lean more left. I've no idea who'll get the right back to sanity...I hope it doesn't happen tho right-wingers ideology is ignorance incarnate

@@jmanakajosh9354 How is Jordan in the "alt right pipeline"? Serious question.

@@flipgsp Jordan Peterson is a tradcon and he appears on tradcon media that has misinformation and alt-righters in it (mostly PragerU). It's less of a function of his ideas and more of a function of the algorithm and the fact that people in his audience have brought up "the Jewish question" frequently. I don't consider Peterson nearly as far right as say even your average Trump rallier or Ben Shapiro he doesn't say openly disparaging things about minorities, but he has spread misinformation and has made platforms that spread lies more popular. *Unfortunately thought leaders must be held accountable for their followers. Deniability only works when you give good arguments against bad people*

It's almost like Pinker is constructing a particularly boring & combustible straw man...

That's interesting, during my time in University (in Canada) I've had at least four different sociology professors and an English professor use power as a defining characteristic of racism.

It is not the definition of racist I would use, but I have many times heard “lack of power” as the reason some think non-white people can’t be “racist”.

Racism is a very powerful instrument used in the ongoing power game between "tribes" in modern multicultural societies. The definition is nowadays so constructed that it can nearly always be argued that anti-white racism doesn't exist.

@@nemsimic It sounds like at least four sociology professors at the university you went to should invest in an actual dictionary and not use made up definitions not used outside academic sociology.

Since when did Adam Smith and Lincoln become U.S. founders LOL? Plato and Aristotle were opposed in thought which is why Aristotle was passed up for heading the Academy. Odd that you would hold these views.

Big names in the title get you views this is a trend that creators are using!

@Woodworking Fangirl He's tried repeatedly to distance himself from his relationship with Epstein, but there's pictures of the two of them together in 2013, after Epstein was convicted.

@@muchomusiclibre exactly

Well Pinker wrote a book "enlightenment now!" meaning it's how he defines his political stance. So I think that makes sense.

Because the Enlightenment is possibly / probably philosophically the most important event to have happened to Western civilization ever. You're a big boy plenty smart you can figure that out.Look up what Chou en Lai remarked 50 years ago about that period coupled with the French Revolution.... He got it!

@@tomdouglas6082 Nope definitely communism, historical materialism, english case-based law definitely the most important things to ever happen in Western civilization. Who the hell bases their constitutions on John Locke? Nobody else in the world

Cause pretending girl dick is real and a fetus is a blob of cells is sooo scientific.

You essentially have two competing absurdities. On the one hand the kind of biblical literalism that is devoid of context, and assumes meaning is universal and self evident. The bible as car maintenance manual. On the other you have self-identifying materialists, who treat science in a similar manner. People who believe mind is a mere epiphenomenon of brain matter and use mind to try and prove it. Neither model can be lived authentically. They are placeholders, tribal affiliations that manifest as political poles. Left and right are the tips of icebergs with the bigger picture out of sight.

@@borderlands6606 you stated that very well.

Borderlands Yes, I think that is right. Philosophically Christianity provides a type of phenomenology which can not be reduced materially and is absurd to interpret literally. And yet provides an important framework. I am not conservative, but I think there were very intelligent conservative modern interpretations right before the moment the right embraced evangelicals like C.S. Lewis (died 1963) and T.S. Eliot (died 1965). Both from Great Britain but I am sure there may be obscure US equivalents. But even „post-Christians“ like Joseph Campbell were politically conservative but socially liberal. I think there was a void and it was filled haphazardly.

[Waves hand like Obi Wan] Just forget about creationism and flat earth, all the christians want is to kill the evil soviets like Bernie Sanders

i notice the merriam-webster definition is "the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy", which does not specify it as human, however, unders definition, the purposeful and consentual demolition of a building, or wall, or other structure, would be defined as violence. This would even apply to things like glass recycling, through which physical force is applied in an effort to destroy something (with the definition of destroy being "to ruin the structure, organic existence, or condition of")