Category Archives: Cultural

Dealing with anti-social-media monopolies

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Back in August I wrote a post on It must be made illegal on “social media” to deny service to people who say things that are not illegal to say. Today the Wall Street Journal had an article on What About Social-Media Neutrality?: Facebook’s algorithms have outsize power, both culturally and economically. This is what I wrote then:

Two things should happen. First, these tech providers must be open to being sued for suspending and forcibly closing accounts unless the company can prove in court that what was being said could not be legally said in public. Second, these are now part of modern social infrastructure in the same way as banks and hospitals. They must be compelled by law to accept and maintain on an equal basis anyone who wishes to participate in their services. This is not something the market can or will fix. There can be only one Facebook. It only works if everyone can join. If the proprietors of Facebook don’t want to work within the new rules, then they can sell up to someone else who does.

This is what the the Wall Street Journal said today:

Regardless of whether net neutrality protections continue, regulation of social-media platforms could help even the online playing field and foster innovation, creativity and free speech while guarding against malicious manipulation of content. Without regulation, the internet’s most sprawling content marketplaces will continue to favor deep pockets and endanger free expression.

It’s a big issue and will only get bigger unless something is done.

Compilation of the best reactions to Jordan Peterson/Cathy Newman interview

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The first is a compilation of reactions to the Jordan Peterson v Cathy Newman interview on BBC4. The one below is Peterson being interviewed on Fox.

Quotes from the Fox interviews.

His single most important piece of advice: “Stop saying things that make you weak.”

Dealing with critics: “They are not just trying to shut you down but to discredit you. If you are very careful in what you say AND YOU DON’T BACK DOWN ultimately things turn around for you.”

On the question, are you dangerous: “Yeah!” . . . “You should be able to be a monster and then not be one.”

On one form of censorship now very common: “If you are a conservative it is highly probable that your youtube content will be de-monitised. . . . It will not be associated with advertising content” and therefore not be promoted and viewed.

LET ME ALSO NOW ADD THIS: Why Can’t People Hear What Jordan Peterson Is Saying?. An example provided in the article.

Peterson begins the interview by explaining why he tells young men to grow up and take responsibility for getting their lives together and becoming good partners. He notes he isn’t talking exclusively to men, and that he has lots of female fans.

“What’s in it for the women, though?” Newman asks.

“Well, what sort of partner do you want?” Peterson says. “Do you want an overgrown child? Or do you want someone to contend with who is going to help you?”

“So you’re saying,” Newman retorts, “that women have some sort of duty to help fix the crisis of masculinity.” But that’s not what he said. He posited a vested interest, not a duty.

“Women deeply want men who are competent and powerful,” Peterson goes on to assert. “And I don’t mean power in that they can exert tyrannical control over others. That’s not power. That’s just corruption. Power is competence. And why in the world would you not want a competent partner? Well, I know why, actually, you can’t dominate a competent partner. So if you want domination—”

The interviewer interrupts, “So you’re saying women want to dominate, is that what you’re saying?”

And then there is the discussion on the pay gap between men and women, which of course refers to the difference in the averages. An old old story among economists for which the answers are all well known except to those who prefer not to know. But Peterson is a psychologist so takes a very different tack.

The next section of the interview concerns the pay gap between men and women, and whether it is rooted in gender itself or other nondiscriminatory factors:

Newman: … that 9 percent pay gap, that’s a gap between median hourly earnings between men and women. That exists.

Peterson: Yes. But there’s multiple reasons for that. One of them is gender, but that’s not the only reason. If you’re a social scientist worth your salt, you never do a univariate analysis. You say women in aggregate are paid less than men. Okay. Well then we break its down by age; we break it down by occupation; we break it down by interest; we break it down by personality.

Newman: But you’re saying, basically, it doesn’t matter if women aren’t getting to the top, because that’s what is skewing that gender pay gap, isn’t it? You’re saying that’s just a fact of life, women aren’t necessarily going to get to the top.

Peterson: No, I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, either. I’m saying there are multiple reasons for it.

Newman: Yeah, but why should women put up with those reasons?

Peterson: I’m not saying that they should put up with it! I’m saying that the claim that the wage gap between men and women is only due to sex is wrong. And it is wrong. There’s no doubt about that. The multivariate analysis have been done. So let me give you an example––

The interviewer seemed eager to impute to Peterson a belief that a large, extant wage gap between men and women is a “fact of life” that women should just “put up with,” though all those assertions are contrary to his real positions on the matter.

Throughout this next section, the interviewer repeatedly tries to oversimplify Peterson’s view, as if he believes one factor he discusses is all-important, and then she seems to assume that because Peterson believes that given factor helps to explain a pay gap between men and women, he doesn’t support any actions that would bring about a more equal outcome.

Her surprised question near the end suggests earnest confusion:

Peterson: There’s a personality trait known as agreeableness. Agreeable people are compassionate and polite. And agreeable people get paid less than disagreeable people for the same job. Women are more agreeable than men.

Newman: Again, a vast generalization. Some women are not more agreeable than men.

Peterson: That’s true. And some women get paid more than men.

Newman: So you’re saying by and large women are too agreeable to get the pay raises that they deserve.

Peterson: No, I’m saying that is one component of a multivariate equation that predicts salary. It accounts for maybe 5 percent of the variance. So you need another 18 factors, one of which is gender. And there is prejudice. There’s no doubt about that. But it accounts for a much smaller portion of the variance in the pay gap than the radical feminists claim.

Newman: Okay, so rather than denying that the pay gap exists, which is what you did at the beginning of this conversation, shouldn’t you say to women, rather than being agreeable and not asking for a pay raise, go ask for a pay raise. Make yourself disagreeable with your boss.

Peterson: But I didn’t deny it existed, I denied that it existed because of gender. See, because I’m very, very, very careful with my words.

Newman: So the pay gap exists. You accept that. I mean the pay gap between men and women exists—but you’re saying it’s not because of gender, it’s because women are too agreeable to ask for pay raises.

Peterson: That’s one of the reasons.

Newman: Okay, so why not get them to ask for a pay raise? Wouldn’t that be fairer?

Peterson: I’ve done that many, many, many times in my career. So one of the things you do as a clinical psychologist is assertiveness training. So you might say––often you treat people for anxiety, you treat them for depression, and maybe the next most common category after that would be assertiveness training. So I’ve had many, many women, extraordinarily competent women, in my clinical and consulting practice, and we’ve put together strategies for their career development that involved continual pushing, competing, for higher wages. And often tripled their wages within a five-year period.

Newman: And you celebrate that?

Peterson: Of course! Of course!

And so on and so forth.

AND THEN THERE’S THIS:

But where are the maple trees?

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This is the title of the article – G’day mate: 1.7-billion-year-old chunk of North America found in Australia – and this is part of what it says:

Rocks recently discovered in Australia bear striking similarities to those found in North America, a study finds. The sandstone sedimentary rocks the scientists uncovered are not “native” to present-day Australia, but instead are common in eastern Canada.

Must help to explain why I find living in Australia so similar to my life in days of yore.

This is what cultural liars like to say: everything you believe is a lie that only benefits the ruling class

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The Jordan Peterson interview by Cathy Newmann continues to resonate through the right-side of the internet. I have seen a number of discussions of which this is one: Jordan B Peterson, Critical Theory, and the New Bourgeoisie. Here’s how it starts but the main point is about Cultural Marxism which I will get to after the prelims:

Earlier this week, clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson appeared on Britain’s Channel 4 in an interview with TV journalist Cathy Newman. It didn’t go well. Journalist Douglas Murray described it as “catastrophic for the interviewer”, while author Sam Harris called it a “nearly terminal case of close-mindedness”. Sociologist Nicholas Christakis perhaps described it best:

Nicholas A. Christakis@NAChristakis

This man @jordanbpeterson is preternaturally calm and composed in the face of a hostile interviewer who also had simply not thought adequately about her ideas and approach. Facts and reason are powerful allies. https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/watch-cathy-newmans-catastrophic-interview-with-jordan-peterson/ …

 

So onto Critical Theory, about which we find this.

Critical Theory draws heavily on Karl Marx’s notion of ideology. Because the bourgeoisie controlled the means of production, Marx suggested, they controlled the culture. Consequently, the laws, beliefs, and morality of society reflected the interests of the bourgeoisie. And importantly, people were unaware that this was the case. In other words, capitalism created a situation where the interests of a particular group of people—those who controlled society—were made to appear to be universal truths and values, when in fact they were not.

The founders of critical theory developed this notion. By identifying the distorting effects power had on society’s beliefs and values, they believed they could achieve a more accurate picture of the world. And when people saw things as they really were, they would liberate themselves. “Theory,” they suggested, always serves the interests of certain people; traditional theory, because it is uncritical towards power, automatically serves the powerful, while critical theory, because it unmasks these interests, serves the powerless.

All theory is political, they said, and by choosing critical theory over traditional theory one chooses to challenge the status quo, in accordance with Marx’s famous statement: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”

 

And it is the central point of virtually all modern university thought which Peterson represents the movement away from.

The identity of the group providing the intellectual foundation for both critical theory and the social justice movement are mostly white middle-and-upper-class intellectuals from the political left in advanced Western economies. It may be more illuminating to see this group’s interests as the driving force of societal change, rather than those of the ever-changing group of the powerless. In effect, the intellectuals of the political left are creating the type of society they personally want to live in. ‘The powerless’ are temporary allies on this journey.

Not only are they temporary allies, but they are unwilling allies as well. Brexit and the election of PDT are two examples of which many more are likely to follow.

Is it too late and are we too stupid to learn?

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This is from David Solway, writing from and about Canada, but he could just as easily be writing about us. The article is titled The Scourge of Multiculturalism and is about a subject the word for which he may even have invented: ethnocide. To be read in full, but not then just passed by to the next such analysis but instead used as a reflection on what can still be done. And what must certainly be done is to prevent any party of the left taking the reins of government, even if it means continuing with the stupidest man to have ever entered the PM’s office continuing as PM. Here is part of what Solway has written.

If we accept that the Western democracies are not mere accidental aggregates but nations with a foundational and settled history, we must be wary of admitting new immigrants in great numbers who may have little in common with an already established ethos, especially if they hail from regimes that are alien or hostile to the civics and culture of the host country. Naturally I will be deliberately misunderstood by left-wing ideologues, social justice warriors and the army of bleeding heart liberals who have lost touch with the roots and principles that ground our heritage and for which our ancestors struggled, fought and died. I am not opposed to immigration per se, only to ill-advised and special interest agendas that would weaken and adulterate the stable domestic accords arrived at over many generations.

To say “we are a nation of immigrants,” then, is immaterial. We are now a nation of citizens. Skilled immigrants, properly screened and taking into account real domestic needs, should be part of the country’s future, but not in multiples that threaten to dilute a nation’s internal cohesion, not from backward countries whose inhabitants are all too often uneducated, illiterate and functionally unassimilable, and certainly not from parts of the world whose history, culture, theology and politics have ranged it against everything that Western civilization comprises. The plight of European nations like Germany, Sweden, England and France, sinking into a morass of civil unrest, criminal violence and legal subversion, should be an incontrovertible object lesson that multiculturalism is the devil’s gift to a forgetful and undeserving people.

And then there is this, which is at the very centre of his argument:

The recent media flap over President Trump’s vulgar expression concerning third world sewers from which many immigrants are drawn — there is no proof one way or another that he uttered the remark — is merely another sign that the West, or its elites, have denied their own historical exceptionalism. Why they should demean their own civitas is perhaps obvious. It is, or should be, common knowledge that an ascendant and ever-assertive Left is quite willing to turn Western nations into dumpsters in order to procure immigrant votes and advantageous electoral results. These quislings demand, observes Geoffrey Hunt in American Thinker, “that we disembowel Western civilization and instead venerate all non-white, post-colonial cultures,” which is nothing less than an “open invitation for failed states to plant their failed cultures and wretchedness here.” Indeed, if Western civilization were not endowed with superior attributes, why would it be besieged by foreign claimants for its freedoms, perquisites and shelter?

That is, these migrants come here for the freedoms, perquisites and shelter their own countries do not offer to them, nor ever will. These are freedoms, perquisites and shelter which we will no longer even continue to offer to ourselves if present migration trends continue. See Sweden and Germany for a glimpse of our own future if we are not able to think realistically about the problems our migration policies and an open borders doctrine would with certainty create.

To become a Swiss citizen refugees must first repay all of the welfare money they received

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Self-reliance is an old idea from well before the creation of capitalist economies and democratic states. So here’s a thought that others might think about: Switzerland Rejects Citizenship Bids Of Residents Who Were Once On Welfare.

Switzerland doesn’t mess around.

The idyllic nation — where the average annual GDP per capita is nearly $80,000 — doesn’t like deadbeats. The nation recently enacted a new civil rights act that prevents residents who received welfare benefits from becoming citizens until they pay back the money they took.

The new regulations took effect January 1. Asylum seekers and refugees who received handouts in the previous three years can’t become permanent residents without paying back the government.

What’s more, refugees must prove they are making efforts to integrate into society in order to win citizenship. They must show that have “cultivated contacts” with a number of Swiss people, according to Kronen Zeitung. There are also new language requirements, which vary depending on the canton they are living in, the Daily Mail reports.

Via Zylocast on an open thread.

Expletive undeleted

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The short version, from the comments thread at Instapundit as is the photo:

So let me get this straight:

* The NYT alleges that Pres. Trump said the word “shithole” in private meeting
* CNN repeats the word “shithole” on the air about six dozen times

Did I just get that right?

The longer version from Drudge:

.
Meantime, what’s the issue, the word he used or is it something else?

And for you too young to remember, this is the source for the phrase “expletive deleted”. Makes me feel old to have to do this, but you would have to go back forty years to be able to get the point.

Daemonology, climatology, it’s all the same thing, a means for the ignorant to pretend they know something important when they actually don’t

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This is Karabar commenting on a previous post. It’s about the kind of people who now invest psychologically in global warming. They are the same people who once burned witches at the stake.

In 1597 King James VI of Scotland published his work “Daemonology”. Within a few decades, Europeans discussed endlessly various methods of killing demons of all description. As time passed and people became “enlightened”, it became obvious that all this discussion about ‘fighting dangerou0s demons’ was nothing but make-believe intended to enhance the power and wealth of the elite.

We really haven’t learned anything, since in the 21st century we discuss endlessly the make-believe of ‘global warming’, ‘dangerous climate change’, the ways in which human activities affect the weather, etc.

Discussions about the imaginary “Global Climate” are as much nonsense as discussions four centuries ago about werewolves, vampires, and witches. In order to determine whether or not some parameter has changed, it is necessary to have some sort of metric that can be examined over time to discover the extent and nature of the change.

“Climate” indeed has such a metric, in the form of classification systems, for the most part Koppen-Geiger and Trewartha. Both have six basic classifications, which are further subdivided into approximately ten sub classifications each. In examining the geographical changes over a century or so, it is clear that areas of each classification can expand or contract slightly in tune with the cyclical nature of the solar system. Indeed, over the breadth of the twentieth century one can argue that there has effectively been no NET change, other than the remarkable greening of vegetation over the past three or four decades which is reflected in the Trewartha classification.

If there were such a parameter as the imaginary “global climate”, what would it be? Would it fall into the classification A, B, C, D, E, or F? Would that mean that the climate of the Scott base is of the same classification as Honolulu?

As homo sapiens did three or four centuries ago, today we insist on the discussion of pure nonsense, but instead of it being how to identify and torture witches, we insist on discussion nonsense such as ‘global warming’, ‘ocean acidification’, and ‘decarbonisation’.

Four centuries have passed with little or no anthropocentric advancement in common sense. Thousands of innocent people were tortured and burned alive in this previous bout of idiocy. How many have to suffer due to the IPCC version of “Daemonology”?

A bit of history and a challenge to the climate change people, a challenge they are absolutely certain never to take up.