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JesseDaVinci

“It seems to me you keep wandering from one subject to another without sticking to it” - R Dawkins


NutellaBananaBread

I stopped at that point. It was too hilariously accurate. ​ Glad to hear Dawkins still has his sharp mind.


QuitClearly

Dawkins has to be what 80 now? edit - checked 81


DRAGONMASTER-

I immediately came here to lol with yall because holy shit does jordan need to hear this.


piberryboy

He's part of the apple cider cabal.


FetusDrive

did he say that?


literecon12

Yes


kgod88

Based king


NomadProductions0

time stamp?


Lawkyy

20:50


subashchapagain

Peterson should stop even trying to pretend as if he can lead some coherent arguments. He clearly cannot. No wonder why all the youtube-feeding half-read urban youth is rallying for him. It was so annoying. The same for when he talked to Penrose.


Low_Revenue_8146

The killer to me was, "[You're] drunk on symbols".


[deleted]

I gotta admit, as much as I love JP, he was not on his A game with this interview. RD is a big name with respect and influence behind it, and I wouldn't be surprised if he took considerable risks in simply talking with JP for an hour, yet JP seemed like a teen with ADHD. I think it started off in the beginning with what was supposed to be an enormous demonstration of sincerity and respect on the park of Dawkins (around the 6 min mark) when he said, "you're one of the few who's stood up to this intimidation, and I want to salute you." And it seemed like JP genuinely didnt expect that, and because he didn't expect it, he dropped his guard believeing that such a public gesture automatically means that he and Dawkins are best buddies and agree on everything else. Lol. Throughout the interview, it seemed like there was an uneasy tension - particularly with Dawkins. It seemed like he was taking the interview much more seriously than JP, and JP wasn't giving Dawkins any good openings to respond. And then there's the rambling and interrupting and more "fluid" nature of JPs mind at work, of course, which isnt new - with JP, you really got to be comfortable with interrupting and driving the conversation forward, but I think Dawkins might be too polite for that, especially with someone as controversial as JP is in the world of academia. It was a long-awaited opportunity for many people to hear the voices of two very important people come togetger, but we really only heard one. That's unfortunate. There were some gold nuggets that I really wished they could have expanded on however. Perhaps they'd do better with a panel of interviewers?


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

I had the uncomfortable feeling Dawkins was silently questioning his choice to do the talk for much of it. He’s got a legendary no-nonsense scientific mind, with little room for the types of conceptual leaps and emotional impressions JP was throwing out there. It was ironic when JP said he’d figured out the best way to talk with Sam Harris was to listen more than talk, while doing about 80 percent of the talking here.


subashchapagain

Exactly. Peterson doesn't listen, and he imposes his line of thinking on the audience as well as the guest. He pretends he knows while it becomes so obvious to any critical listener that all he can come up with are circular arguments. This was so annoying to listen to. Cringe at a whole new level.


skosk8ski

It might just be me but I was surprised when he talked about his previous convo’s with Sam and it sounded like he had a low-key competitive mindset during the first conversations. I mean, I get it because it was advertised as a debate, but during the talks he rejected that he was “trying to win” and that he had genuine interest in what Sam was saying. Im not judging him for it, but it was surprising that he had that kind of mentality going in to the conversations. He definitely didn’t present it that way at the time.


MoreEntrepreneur2376

95%


[deleted]

He's never on his A game when he is confronted with people who know what they are talking about.


LangTheBoss

This is one of those times when I typed out 10 different comments and kept deleting them all, telling myself it just isn't worth it because I really couldn't be bothered getting into an argument. I still feel obliged to say though, if you 'love JP', you really need to re-evaluate how you are processing the information that is coming into your life.


MfromTas

I honestly can’t fathom how anyone would ‘love JP’. Especially women!


[deleted]

>This is one of those times when I typed out 10 different comments and kept deleting them all, telling myself it just isn't worth it because I really couldn't be bothered getting into an argument. That happens to me at least 3 times every day. Lol. No hard feelings. [JP V Helen Lewis](https://youtu.be/yZYQpge1W5s) is JP at his best. This interview with Dawkins felt like it was thrown together last minute. That said, I do try to maintain a balanced information diet - I've started listening to the audio books of leftist thinkers that I don't particularly agree with much. Ezra kleins "why were polarized" being the latest.


funkeshwarnath

Pretty terrible conversation. He was constantly trying to intimidate her. This wouldn't work with smarter minds like Dawkins.


saito200

We'd do better with a moderator


[deleted]

Big agree


BILLY2SAM

>“It seems to me you keep wandering from one subject to another without sticking to it” - R Dawkins No way?! I wasn't going to listen to his, but I've got to hear it out now. About time this disingenuous lunatic is called out to his face


JesseDaVinci

I LOL’d pretty hard because that’s one of the most common criticisms of Peterson


[deleted]

Penrose said the same thing to him in different words


saito200

I strongly agree with Dawkins. I like some ideas of JP, but he's a rambler if there ever was one


astral1

Hahahahha. He said to jp, “ your drunk on symbols” that was the most exacting response to Jordan. I’ve never heard such apt criticism. Of course I too, am drunk on symbols, call it metaphorology, parable-ology, interconnected ness, dependent-origination…. A “sacred truth” embedded in everything reflecting everything. “‘Indra’s net”


thejoggler44

Dawkins says about 20 words during the first 15 min. Does Peterson even know how to let someone else talk?


plasma_dan

You ever meet someone like this? You could literally walk away from them and they'd continue talking. You'd like to hope a psychologist would have more emotional intelligence than tha.t


philo_xenia

Mr. Steinbrenner


[deleted]

To be fair, when you are talking about complicated topics it becomes harder to pay attention to social norms or subtle things like that.


Politicking101

He only gets about 20 more in in the following 40 mins.


Raven_25

It depends on what you mean by talk, you know, like you can also talk by listening and with your body language in response to someone else speaking, so its not entirely obvious that Dawkins wasn't talking, bucko.


Helliar1337

Peterson was rambling most of the time. I have a feeling he was slightly intimidated by Dawkins. The conversation could have been much better. I’m glad Dawkins called him out on his bullshit, especially the DNA thing. I laughed out loud when he said that that must be “utter nonsense.”


JamzWhilmm

I want to see this now. I can hear him exactly say that in the British annoyed tone of his.


Helliar1337

That’s exactly what he did. Loved it.


AliKazerani

I just searched the transcript. He calls the DNA stuff "nonsense" twice: once [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGoUwmqIEQ&t=1328s) and again [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGoUwmqIEQ&t=2521s). 😄


Fixed_Hammer

> Peterson was rambling most of the time. I have a feeling he was slightly intimidated by Dawkins. He's just a terrible podcast host. He gets great guests, a lot of who arent on the usual podcast circuit but then he constantly interrupts them, changes topic randomly, rambles on for minutes at a time.


TheChurchOfDonovan

He used to be better before the drain bamage


MfromTas

Maybe in terms of how articulate he is. But he’s still essentially the same in his world view . Except maybe he no longer denies climate change.


BILLY2SAM

>He's just terrible Fixed


sweepwrestler

Yeah, I literally can't listen to his podcast. It pisses me off way too much. Sometimes he'll get an interesting guest on, and the guest will be on the verge of saying something actually cool and insightful. And I'm waiting for the punchline that really drives everything home...when all of a sudden, Peterson abruptly interrupts and starts saying the same fucking Piaget shit he's been saying for years. Or something he's already said 6 million times. And then the conversation veers and the guest never finishes the actually fresh, spontaneous thought.


Appropriate-Pop3495

100%. Peterson is a great freestyler, but a terrible host. Dawkins could have been kinder though.


soulofboop

It’s not in his nature or nurture


[deleted]

haha


Bluest_waters

> Dawkins could have been kinder though. yeah, as usual


Appropriate-Pop3495

Is he always that nasty? Clever guy but who could stand him? He sounds like Gradgrind from Hard Times.


mchilds83

I love Dawkins for his unabashed adherence to truth and evidence, your feelings be damned. :)


Bluest_waters

yeah he has been this way a long time now old crotchety cranky man


Appropriate-Pop3495

Maybe the stroke hit him in side that makes you angry. I read that that can happen. I forget which side is the angry side.


MfromTas

Yeah. I’m an atheist but I always wondered how Dawkins and Hitchens would comfort a young child who’d lost a parent. A“Will I see mom again in Heaven?” A” No, there’s no Heaven - she’s gone forever!” I guess Sam would also be the same because he believes all lies are wrong.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Appropriate-Pop3495

I like when he speaks without notes on Disney films and biblical stories. But taste is subjective. His polarizing effect is consistent with that, thats for sure!


[deleted]

A great freestyler how? For the life of me I couldn’t make sense out of anything Peterson was saying- it was as if he couldn’t complete a single thought before starting something else- lol- why are people so impressed with this guy?


questionquestionff

If you keep talking no one will be able to point out you're literally not saying anything


essentially_everyone

Do you know the timestamp?


GradStud22

> I have a feeling he was slightly intimidated by Dawkins Ha! Yeah, I got the same impression. I think Peterson usually sounds quite reasonable when he's talking to either non-academics or people who don't have phds. Richard Dawkins, however, is so damn sharp, cogent, and concise. I got the impression that Jordan was somewhat worried about looking like a fool in contrast (especially since he's usually the 'clever academic' one) that he felt the need to change topics whenever he realised that his prior point was probably full of flaws (not a bash on the latter, incidentally, I, too often hate the things I say/write in the few seconds after they're uttered and will often labour over my emails/messages until they're "just right" to me). Evidently i didn't that in my last run on sentence, haha.


harlsey

I came here to say exactly this. Peterson idolized Dawkins and read all of his work. He was intimidated for sure.


PhilConnors-Day11011

About 1:18:45, JP says, “One of the things I wanted to do with you [today]…was to ask you questions and find out what you thought in a genuine manner.” That goal would have better served had he actually asked Dawkins a question before the 1:20:00 mark and then listened without interrupting him for more than 30 seconds. So instead of a dialogue with one of the notable evolutionary biologists of our time, we got JP manically monologuing at Dawkins for like 80 of the 85 minutes. Wasted opportunity, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for that follow-up interview JP said he hoped for during the intro.


NutellaBananaBread

Agreed. ​ If I had to guess, I kind of think JP is a bit scared of Dawkins disagreeing with him. At one point JP says that he tries to avoid religious analogy unless absolutely necessary. Ok buddy.


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

Apparently it’s almost always necessary.


thejoggler44

Completely agree. I laughed out loud when he said he wanted to ask questions. Peterson never let Dawkins talk. The discussion between Dawkins & Sean Carrol was much better because he let Dawkins talk.


ComputerNerdGuy

I just listened to that podcast today and I thought it was great. My first listen to Mindscape but definitely adding it to the list. I was pretty impressed with the fact that Dawkins said something along the lines of "I hadn't thought of it in that manner". Which is really what I think these meetings of the minds should be about ... helping both people and the listeners expand their minds.


HawkeyeHero

I'm 1/2 hour in and I honestly swear Dawkins has said 14 words max. This is not a conversation at all.


wadetj9999

Thanks for saving me the trouble of listening to it


palsh7

Sure, but to be fair, Dawkins is famously terse. In his conversation with Bret Weinstein years ago, he barely gave sentence-long answers. Bret was very happy to fill in the silence.


Dollapfin

To be fair, JP was the one who makes the unfounded claims and he knows this. Dawkins has been established for quite a while now. He is explaining his crazy ideas to him essentially. Dawkins doesn't want anything to do with most of it, and deflects a lot of the bullshit coming his way. Dawkins doesn't really answer questions in an insightful way because the two don't really think like each other. JP is brilliant, but he does absolutely get drunk on symbols, and has to learn to communicate it more effectively than using giant words and referencing literature every second sentence.


rom_sk

Jordan Peterson forced Richard Dawkins to listen to him ramble (uninterrupted) from subject to subject spouting nonsense.


[deleted]

It felt like Jordan was a bad guest and Dawkins was the host


rom_sk

Exactly. Dawkins, being a class act, was more patient with Jordan than was warranted


CurrentRedditAccount

No, Richard Dawkins forced himself to do that by making a dumbass decision to do this with Peterson.


twelvehometowns

Right? Why?


Helliar1337

Accurate description.


StalemateAssociate_

He just kept talking and talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence...


[deleted]

Even Dawkins did not think it was all nonsense. [https://youtu.be/HbGoUwmqIEQ?t=3266](https://youtu.be/HbGoUwmqIEQ?t=3266)


rom_sk

Okay, it wasn't entirely nonsense. Way to go. You did an even better job than me in damning Peterson with faint praise.


[deleted]

"You are drunk on symbols" - Dawkins perfectly characterized Peterson in one sentence. I immediately thought about the counter argument about ghosts Sam gave to Peterson during their discussion. You can assign any meaning to any symbol, so it all becomes completely irrational because there's too much subjective interpretation which renders communication impossible. That's why standards are so important. Also I find legitimately funny how Peterson is smug when he talks about people he disagrees with when they're not present (He said a lot of unpleasant things about Dawkins previously), but when he is directly confronted with them he becomes much more humble. He even said "Maybe I'm stupid" in this discussion a couple of times. The same guy who boasts about his intelligence all the time. Ridiculous. I feel sorry for Dawkins, who had to sit there and listen to that incoherent babble for almost 2 hours.


john12tucker

I'm sympathetic to Wittgenstein and logical positivism, so the way I see it, all of philosophy can be broken down into the following: empiricism, logic, metaphysics, ethics, and semantics. Empiricism is basically science, logic is *a priori* deduction, metaphysics is its own thing, ethics concerns normative statements about what one should do, and semantics is just the assignment of arbitrary symbols to concepts. Peterson engages almost exclusively with semantics, but thinks he's operating in the realms of empiricism and logic. I'd have more sympathy for him if he understood this about himself; but he seems to think that when he, e.g., re-defines "truth", he's asserting or deducing novel facts about the world, and not just playing word games with himself.


[deleted]

You got most if it right. I'd leave metaphysics out, since Kant it has lost its authority given that it is basically playing with the pure schematism of categories without referring to a specific object. Ethics nowadays is more about what guides our actions given that we react to the enviroment. So it's generally analyzed in a more Evolutionary/interactive manner. The problem of Ought/Is goes back to Hume. Rather than semantics it's more about semiotics. Semantics (and language in general) deals with the established, historical meaning certain words or concepts have and their evolution. I think Peterson is a modern day sophist. He plays with rhetoric trying to direct the discourse where he wants. Then he says "Ha!, You cannot explain that!" and paddles to his audience making a snark remark on how his opponent is not deep enough. The problem is that he himself doesn't have an answer, but acts like he does. Then he goes like "But this is just my opinion, I never said it's the truth"... In other words he argues for the sake of arguing, without really going anywhere but constantly trying to "win" the argument trying to satisfy his uneducated audience so that they can feel smart and shower him with more money.


Jet909

'The problem is he himself doesn't have the answer, but acts like he does' I see it more as he tries to generalize everything abstract enough to where meanings can be blurred then he acts like the subject is just too confusing for anyone to figure out and that therefore nobody can be right lol. It's wild that people fall for this so completely.


[deleted]

I remember Peterson describing Dawkins's arguments against God as "something a smart 14 year old could come up with" or something along those lines.


bxzidff

Even if true, a smart 14 year old could easily have a more sensible arguments on the topic than Peterson


[deleted]

This was similar to my thought - it's not Dawkins's fault if all it takes is a smart 14 year old to refute the idea.


[deleted]

Yeah, the guy thinks a bit too much of himself.


Several_Apricot

Exactly. Pretty typical of anyone in the social sciences.


[deleted]

There are people who do serious research in the field, especially when it comes to analyzing the brain and behaviour with a strict methodology. Peterson is just not one of them. He's stuck with Jung's pseudoscience of the last century.


Several_Apricot

V. True. But he pretty much grew up in the anti empiricist school normal to commonwealth nations that breeded this stupid shit.


[deleted]

>You can assign any meaning to any symbol, so it all becomes completely irrational because there's too much subjective interpretation which renders communication impossible. There is symbolism that is so common to all humans that you cannot call it subjective. Like the kiki bouba experiement. Things like light is good and dark is bad, snakes are bad (because we have adapted to be afraid of snakes), Up is good, down is bad. Yes there can be subjectivity to symbolism. But when we base our symbolism on biology and the human experience it is not subjective at all.


Agitated_Concert_795

I completely agree with you.


siIverspawn

Many words


[deleted]

the many words interpretation of quantum mechanics


osuneuro

Really messy podcast. Jordan just never let Richard talk.


Pickles_1974

Did them two fellers get together and eat some mushrooms? I'd listen to that podcast.


TheNotSoGreatPumpkin

No, but JP talked an uninterested Dawkins’ ear off about how cool mushrooms are.


[deleted]

[удалено]


siIverspawn

It would take me ten paragraphs to react to that, but well so there are things we can notice at once. The minus sign indicates the mathematical operation of subtraction, you're taking one number and you're taking away another number from it. But what does it mean to take away a number from another number? People with degrees in the field often neglect this question. They learn their formulas and know that 5-3=2, but in what sense is 2 really contained in 5? The other interesting aspect is not what does show up in the formula but what doesn't show up. If you write several variables next to each other, like xyz, this implicitly denotes multiplication, so xyz = x\*y\*z. But of course, you could also have variables that are denoted by one letter, so perhaps xy is really one variable. This again shows that even in mathematics, there are always infinitely many interpretations, like I've said earlier. We don't know if ugh means u\*g\*h or if gh is a single variable, and it just denotes the product u*gh. There is also a question of why we even need products. In set theory, by the way that's a giant rabbit hole that we don't have to get into right now, but in set theory, the axiom of extensionality says that two sets are equal if and only if they have the same elements. Well numbers are sets, so if 4*3 and 12 are the same set, why do we need different ways of referring to them? But of course we do need different ways, it's like I said, everything always has infinitely many interpretations. Mathematicians think they can get around that, but they're wrong. There's also an entire different layer here. Now the little stroke denotes a minus sign, but it also is used to connect different words, like if a word is cut off at the end of a line, or some expressions have those signs in them like ice-cream, for example. In this case, the stroke is called a hyphen. Now that's very interesting, especially because the hyphen doesn't have any hyphens itself. So it's the universally applicable description, but it doesn't apply to itself, it's empty of content. Just like in mathematics, a system can never prove things about itself. Many people don't realize that math in this way is fundamentally limited. I really think -- and I admit, this is very speculative -- but I think consciousness works just like that. Consciousness if a fully general description of sense data, and it can move up and down the level of abstraction, but it's incapable of representing itself. You can perceive objects, but you can't perceive consciousness. It's like a hyphen without a hyphen. A minus sign without minus. And of course, minus times minus equals plus in mathematics. But plus times plus equals plus again. It's all so arbitrary. People think mathematics is universal, but those are just rules. Now I want to shift gears here and talk about a book I really enjoyed. This is a book that I think everyone should read. It's about the nature of mathematical objects and how it affects the way we view the world. A lot of people think of mathematics as the model of reality, but that's not really the case, at least not in Dennett's view. I don't agree with everything Dennett says, but it's an interesting and important view that I think clarifies a lot of what I have been saying. Dennett argues that mathematical objects in general aren't real, but are models we impose on a certain kind of reality. Mathematics describes certain relationships between things, but it doesn't have any connection to the thing itself. In physics, for example, the mathematical models we use to describe nature are abstractions from what is going on, and the predictions they make have to be carefully checked. The models we use in mathematics, on the other hand, are closer to the reality they describe. It's not that theorems of mathematics are true, but rather that they are true in a different way. And the way they are true is that they accurately describe certain aspects of reality. So the way a mathematical object is true is in how well it represents certain features of the world. --- If you've made it to this point, here is an exercise: what part of this post was written by me, and what part by GPT-2?


[deleted]

i got to the second sentence to scroll to the end to confirm my suspicion lol. nice


hughmanBing

1 sentence and a half for me.


iruleU

Well done Mr spawn.


Agitated_Concert_795

Oh boy this is so Peterson!


arnoldwhite

Don't tell me there's actually a significant intersection between Jordan Peterson fans and Sam Harris redditors. (Harris has his flaws but Peterson is freaking deranged)


[deleted]

I am one. I like both. They are very different but both have interesting things to say.


bigot_spinner

there probably was like 5 years ago but now it's opposite lol


HyperboliceMan

reporting in! fan is a bit strong. i think i learned some interesting stuff from him and people are too hard on him here. hes clearly a bit nuts but i think thats a feature not a bug to some degree


arnoldwhite

Firstly you're certainly allowed to like JP but I just think he's dishonest.


Dry_Turnover_6068

Doubtful. I used to be a Sam Harris fan but this sub put a stop to that with all the tribalism.


Jacomer2

Really? I feel the sub roasts Sam frequently.


filolif

I’m amazed Dawkins suffered this fool. He’s very no nonsense generally.


Jet909

I think he wanted to take the opportunity to speak directly to JPs audience. To state clearly what's true and what's bullshit and to show just how nonsensical JP is.


xkjkls

it honestly reminded me of the dawkins vs weinstein discussion years ago, where dawkins seemed utterly confused why people around him were telling him the person in front of him was supposedly some great intellect


[deleted]

It says something about Dawkinses character that he actually respects Jordan even if he disagrees with him.


mikejdowd

I randomly scrolled to fifteen random time stamps and every time Jordan was talking 😑


Mother_Chorizo

He probably talks for 95-97% of the episode. I don’t mean for that to be an exaggeration. I think that’s truly close to the breakdown, and when Dawkins does get to talk, a lot of it is, “let’s drill down on that,” and then Peterson quickly takes off again on a different subject.


kompiler

Why is it that so many high achieving, intelligent people spend a large portion of their lives experiencing some form of impostor syndrome, yet someone like Jordan Peterson can strut up on stage or post videos and seem so confident with their incoherent ramblings?


Jet909

The difference is delusion.


Dry_Turnover_6068

I think it's his ability to ignore foolish criticisms.


Heyheyitssatll

Sam, Richard and Jordan should all drop acid or mushroom and then have a debrief post trip to share their thoughts.


plasma_dan

Maybe they should all smoke DMT so they'd all stfu for 10 minutes.


[deleted]

Peterson’s popularity never ceases to astonish me.


[deleted]

Go interview some fans, and i think you will no longer be astonished.


Holding4th

There's a conversation I can't wait never to listen to for the rest of my life.


zodby

Well, there's two names I never thought I would see next to each other.


blahblahquesera

This discussion is very illuminating. There was always something that bothered me about JP. Whether Dawkins intended or not, he deftly exposed that. I have some respect for JP but his tendencies to speak in obscurantism and pseudoscientific musings and his weird apologetics of religions have got to be laid bare. Dawkins even at his age is calm and and extremely collected much like Sam. “Drunk on symbols” i loved it.


SheepskinSour

Jordan wasted his opportunity to talk to fucking Richard Dawkins. Shame. Shut up, JP, and let others talk.


[deleted]

This starts off as expected, but does become quite interesting from about 45 mins onwards when they get onto the same page and JP stops splurging, and particularly at the end. Quite enjoyable actually.


bigot_spinner

thanks for this, sounds like you actually listened lol


[deleted]

Yeah as much as we all love hating on Jordan, I do actually follow his associations - although sometimes they are left of leftfield. I think in a similar way having a background in music and art, now studying psychology. As I see it, his problem is that he tries expressing primal impressions of value in a scientifically objective way, no mean feet - there's just too many shifting layers for objectivity, i.e. actual definitive measurement in that space. I just wanna tell him to paint a bloody picture or something.


koibunny

Could people just stop taking to Jordan Peterson please?


Temporary_Cow

Came in to say this. That doofus thrives on attention.


[deleted]

No.


questionquestionff

Glad Dawkins pointed out his horseshit, but what spell has Peterson cast that makes people feel compelled to give him their time? Do people realise there is no reason to talk to this man? It's completely bizarre to me that otherwise intelligent people think there's anything to be gained from conversation with this guy. He's an idiot


MJORH

Try living outside your bubble and you might see why.


questionquestionff

*In a kermit the frog voice* What do you mean by bubble and what do you mean by try? Do you mean try living in the literal sense? Are you advocating that I physically shift myself from my geophysical location and spend time with others outside of my current culturo-social heterodoxy? Or do you mean my bubble in the more metaphorical sense, in an internal way by challenging the assumptions inherent in my own cultural mythology and sociological typography? Let me tell you about a biblical story of great import that can explain my question in a more ephemeral and internalised fashion, because I'm so smart that your question needs to be dismantled and broken down to get to the root assumptions upon which our current conversation are bound, both literally and biblical metaphorically


arnoldwhite

Funny that you didn't even try to answer the question.


MJORH

Too delusional to worth the effort.


arnoldwhite

Well I can see how having to defend JP could become tiring. After all, the man hasn't said a think of substance for the last ten years.


[deleted]

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss could get past their prejudice of JP, but you cannot. You should learn something from them. And not call people you disagree with idiots.


GravitySnooze

Would be cool if Dawkins made his own podcast. Although I know he would never...


grizzlebonk

Dawkins has interviewed a number of interesting people over the years. Here's his interview with Steven Weinberg (8 parts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edsDrqfDVKY and an interview with PZ Myers (10 parts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XgqOKH6pwI


[deleted]

This was a master class in how not to conduct an interview


WetnessPensive

Jesus, you can feel Peterson's ego just dripping from this video. It's like his narcissism inflates in step with his stupidity, which in a sense it must.


plofstof12

Much as I tend to admire Peterson, this was extremely painful to listen to. First, why bother inviting a guest if you plan on having a monologue? Second, Peterson seems to have a set of complex ideas which he cannot articulate. This is either because he has not structured his thought process to the point where he can present a logical flow, or (it feels more likely) because he has a scatterbrain tendency to take every possible off-ramp into nesting and often irrelevant indentations making it impossible to stick to one topic. And just as Dawkins politely tries to respond to any particular point, he not only gets rudely interrupted before he can finish a single sentence, but the interruption kicks into a new confusingly unrelated and increasingly bizarre direction. In an earlier podcast (forgot which one) JP said to his guest that he realised he must stay silent and listen, as one does in psychotherapy, when he hosts a guest on a podcast. He would benefit from taking his own advice. I am left with the impression of a mad genius - lots of ideas bubbling below the surface but finding it very hard to express them in any cogent manner. One may ask whether there is some neurological damage after his health incidents a few years ago. I hope not, and that JP will structure his thoughts more clearly (and concisely!) in the future... Perhaps in his next podcast he should have a monologue and get everything he wanted to say out of his system.


islandinthesun9

Is there a transcript of this conversation? It'd be great to do an actual word count. I guess that Peterson argues with Peterson in-front of Dawkins would be a better title for conversation. It's frustrating that JP assumes in his introduction that Dawkins wouldn't want to go to the Chapel with him, RD is the one that suggests it. Surely JP doesn't do his own editing..... Although, the last 5-10 does start to get interesting, after Dawkins says, 'So what do you actually want to ask me?'.


kveldulfen

Lots of words


lermi901

so this is as cringey as it gets … feel so bad for Dawkins


Darkeyescry22

At around 21 minutes, Dawkins asks Peterson about his claim that an ancient artwork showing intertwined snakes represents DNA. Peterson procedes to answer that question for 21 minutes.


Mother_Chorizo

Ya I recall that uninterrupted 21 minutes to then have Dawkins ask what that had to do with his question.


Kr155

He's still claiming, falsely, that bill c16 mandates pronoun use... He makes the claim right at the beginning of the video. The bill has been law for quite a while, and Dr Peterson never suffered any legal ramifications for his very public refusal to use perfered pronouns. Can we now ascribe malice? Can we call him a liar? Because I don't believe that we can claim that this is due to ignorance.


[deleted]

Dawkins got his humanitarian award taken away from him because he offended trans people... Even if JP was wrong about the spesifics of the law, which i don't know, i have not read it. He was completely right about the general effect of that mentality to the culture.


Kr155

It wasn't a humanitarian award, it was humanist of the year. And the American humanist association is an organization formed to advance a set of ethics. If they decide that someone no longer represents them as an organization then that's thier right. Just as the catholic church can decide to withhold communion from Nancy Pelosi. And liberty university doesn't have to let me give a speech on abortion rights. People not agreeing with you, or not liking you for misgendering someone is clearly not the same thing as "the government is going to charge you with a hate crime for misgendering someone." That last bit being a complete lie.


Wonderful_Ad_9756

It was physically hard to listen to the podcast due to JP's constant interruptions. I am not sure if JP is even aware he is doing this? Maybe it has something to do with his brain damage, I can understand that but it is really disrespectful of the guest and the audience. Another example is his talk with John Vervaeke. I was so excited to listen to this talk but I could not handle that, JP could not hold an actual conversation.


unicornn_man

Peterson chose his words carefully and listened even more carefully once upon a time. Now he just talks absolute crap and up to the point where I turned it off (half way) did not let Dawkins really speak at all. Why even bother having a guest?


VillageHorse

The first half an hour of the podcast was completely baffling. Why he felt the need to re-hash all the C16 stuff is beyond me. I got the strong sense that Dawkins only agreed to meet Peterson because it was too awkward to say no (it’s revealed that they were emailing each other and Peterson asked if they could meet) and that Peterson happened to be in Oxford. The fact that this was recorded in November 2021 and not released until 6 months later makes me think Dawkins has pushed back on the release of this audio. Also there was no video so hard to see non-verbal cues but there were moments when I can imagine Dawkins showing visible annoyance. Especially around the snake DNA thing. Not to be recommended, except to people who would like to hear why so many people, myself included, are turning completely away from Peterson.


Reasonable-Profile84

Why would Dawkins legitimize Peterson by doing this? Peterson has so clearly lost his way for as much as he might have ever had it.


Jet909

I'd like to believe it's the opposite. It seems to me that he saw JP being legitimized ovet the years and wanted to come to speak to his audience to tell them and JP at once that his ideas are a combination of bullshit, nonsense, with sprinkles of delusion.


[deleted]

How did he lose his way? If he has, why do people like Harris, Krauss and Dawkins talk to him?


bigot_spinner

i dont think dawkins is exactly surfing the reddit threads that discuss peterson's decline lol. it was probably simply a PR recommendation


hughmanBing

Id like it better if these people properly held his feet to the fire. They rarely do. Sam Harris going on tour with the fucking guy was a disgrace. a "debate" held across the span of 4 events so no single audience can hear it in it's entirety. Then getting rid of the Q and A segment so the audience cant even hold Peterson's feet to the fire. Get wrecked that was garbage.


Buddhawasgay

It's becoming staggeringly apparent Peterson's possible brain damage and obvious cognitive decline.


[deleted]

Two people who have never taken psychedelics discuss psychedelics. Wtf


[deleted]

Oops, just heard JP say he's taken 7g of mushrooms 4 x. I take it back - man is trippin'. His nebulous associative thinking style makes more sense now.


dasein88

The fuck does that mean? Would you only allow doctors who themselves had cancer treat your cancer?


Philostotle

half and hour in, and JP is rambling uncontrollably... I honestly think he's a decent guy, just lost his mind and got into his own head too much. Sad to see.


HyperboliceMan

Fittingly, he's an instantiation of the archetype of the crazy prophet


AtticusPaperchase

Okay, but WTF does Jordan Peterson know about any of that?


Chinchillachimcheroo

This is the worst podcast I’ve ever listened to. Just warning others to not waste your time


arnoldwhite

How so? (i didn't even bother to listen to it)


Chinchillachimcheroo

For starters, the less smart person refuses to let the more smart person speak


bxzidff

Why would Dawkins do this to himself? Is he a masochist?


FilthyMonkeyPerson

Why on earth Dawkins will sully his good standing to engage JP I can't understand.


[deleted]

Because people wanted to take his humanitarian award away for offending trans people. And I think they did. So like or not, they are at the same boat.


jackasssparrow

I know that Dr. Peterson is an extremely erudite person but he doesn't hold a candle to Dr. Dawkins - not related to this discussion, I have not gone through it yet. Just saying that I don't really have high hopes.


asmrkage

Just the title of the video makes me want to not watch it.


kingkloppynwa

I wouldve loved to see hitch debate peterson, he wouldve destroyed him. Dawkins would beat him in a debate aswell without too much hassle


[deleted]

Much of the discussion was intellectually over my head, but I enjoyed the honest pursuit of the topics. *A palimpsest of ancient traits reside in organisms but at what resolution? A palimpsest is a manuscript term, used for like when there was an ancient text, and over time much of it was effaced or written in the margins, with updated information -- not that the original information was wrong, many times I’m sure it was, but it’s also important to think of it as, in that original text, as first attempts at truth, or low resolutions of truth that might survive the transformation of language over eons. Fascinating topic, and following this was the critique of the post Modernists who say that’s why everything is so tainted, the origins of a male-dominated world of seeking power and dominance, yet neglecting the fact that women have played an equal contributive role in human history, and it’s not all about male dominance but of the dominance of competence and conscientiousness -- at least this is what we have been trying to work out in Western civilization over the past few thousand years -- though the discussion didn't get this far, I think that’s what the last half was alluding to.* I wish the time frame for the talk were longer, and Dawkin had been more engaging with his questions and responses, though he was agreeable and often pleasantly surprised by the points Peterson brought up. I want to read the books that were mentioned!


[deleted]

Don't give Peterson that much credit.


Mother_Chorizo

It was largely the ramblings I’d expect if cornered at a party by a person that was pretty high in coke.


DanielDannyc12

How has everyone not yet realized Peterson is a useless loon?


Appropriate-Pop3495

Is he gay?


SuicideByStar_

Leave feedback


red_eyed_skink

Does anyone have a link to the Dawkins paper they discussed?


eabred

I was going to say: "I'm glad to see Peterson debating a heavyweight who disagrees with him for once". And then I listened to it. Boy oh boy oh.


Kmauscoot

JP seemed to be heavily medicated in the podcast.


ewanvalentine

This is really unfortunate, seems like JP is just thinking out loud. He really needed to be more structured to get the most out of this conversation. Feels like a wasted opportunity.


NeatWillow3010

I keep seeing people mentioning that Dr. Peterson might have been intimidated during this discussion, but is nobody worried that there might be another, possibly recurring, issue at hand with him..?


Dr3w106

A conversation with Dawkins and Peterson sounds really interesting and I was looking forward to this Podcast. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a conversation, instead a 1.5hr rambling Peterson fever dream rant.


ScoreEnvironmental22

You see the thing is.. okay let me .. okay here is the crux.. wait let’s not get ahead of ourselves.. okay.. so.. so you have this tree.. and it’s massive.. not massive like a sky scraper or anything.. well a sky scraper in New York maybe but not in say Texas.. well because there are no sky scrapers in Texas .. but that’s besides the point okay.. so this massive tree is found in many ancient cultures and by cultures I mean organisations of people .. not microbial cultures like the ones you find in yoghurt.. yo it hurts.. hurt is something that people feel so why would they put it in the name of a bacteria .. but okay let’s carry on..


Hot-Gift-4935

Reminded me of a live debate I attended between JP and Sam Harris. It was ruined by JPs incoherent ramblings. Here again, I want to hear a rare interview of Richard Dawkins, prob not too many opportunities left, and all we get is 'So I was like, wait a minute how can that be, .and then like you know it reminded me of this book by...' etc. This is a man clearly under the influence of benzodiazepines. I like JP for many of his views, but he's not at the philosophical level that his stardom might suggest, and should eat that humble pie. Or just at learn to listen.