Peterson's 12 Rules For Life, have you heard of this?

[bennyboy]

It can be and has been quantified..to death.  No amount of that stops you or any other anxious person from desperately trying to talk about something else...which, ofc, is part of why it never gets addressed in our society.  Creating magical "productivity" (in an already productive economy) or directly addressing systemic and institutional racism, gee..which one is going to solve the problem of racism?  

Productivity is my response, because I think it's the bottleneck. It's not magic, it's an expression of the basic principles of supply.

If you want to take actual steps, you have to pick a specific quantifiable issue and address it. I'm not denying that there are plenty of those-- so pick one, and say what you'd do about it. I'd say the issue with Wal-Mart and so on would be an excellent place to start.

I mean, sure..sure, lets conjure up some more stuff...but if we don't solve that other problem..that stuff is going to go where it already goes - and it's not into the hands of disadvantaged populations.  

I'd say the extreme wealth at the top really is a problem-- not because it's unfair, but because those dollars represent real goods and services that people have to provide (or could potentially be paid to provide), and they are trapped like souls in a magic crystal.

Understand, though, that true productivity requires a level of inspiration-- like the desire to win a war, or the awareness that superior effort will bring real rewards.

Rich white kids sell drugs -at- school.  It's the best place to sell drugs in the whole world, lol.  Hell..that's the only reason I even went to school.  

Yeah, me too. But there aren't a lot of cops there who are just driving around looking for action. In poor areas, the cops are already there. They don't need a tip-off or some anonymous intel, they can just drive around picking up obvious drug-deals like grapes off a vine. Is this not true?

Gated communities -are- high crime areas, Benny.  Black people and black neighborhoods emphatically do not commit more crime than white people or white neighborhoods.  It's not as if this isn't a known known..even to the police.  Black people and black communities are simply policed at a higher rate, and then sentenced disproportionately thereafter.  We could  make five billion more left handed green widgets tomorrow and that would still be true.

Hmmmm.

I don't hear about a lot of gang violence or sales of drugs on the street, especially with strangers. Can you bring some numbers?

You might want to try researching those "plans of action" that have been floated and engaged in..since this seems to be the last sterilized bit of nonsense you have to cling to.  I'm not going to do it for you, that bridge is well and truly burnt.

-Meanwhile, your trickle down economic theory of solving issues of racism is absurd on it's face.  We've seen immense growth in productivity the past few decades.  Didn't solve the problems of racism.  Hell, it didn't even solve white americas economic troubles.  The troubles that made them so anxious they thought "hey, let's give white supremacy another try!".

Productivity is not trickle-down economics. Trickle-down economics is tax breaks for rich people, on the belief that they'll be able to apply their advantage better than the working or middle class would. That's horse-shit.

When I say productivity, I'm talking about creating jobs that can be paid for. It sound like you have a problem with that, though I can't imagine a scenario in which you could.

You really confuse me with your resistance on almost all of my proposals. Do you feel prisoners with excessive terms should NOT be released? Do you think that health and day cares should NOT be provided to poor families? Do you feel that we should NOT try to be more productive, so that there's more pie to go around?

It's almost like your goal is to resist any positive effort because you WANT to have economic disparity to virtue signal about. But that couldn't be it. . .

Color me confused, dude.

[The Grand Nudger]

Productivity is my response, because I think it's the bottleneck.  It's not magic, it's an expression of the basic principles of supply.

If you want to take actual steps, you have to pick a specific quantifiable issue and address it.   I'm not denying that there are plenty of those-- so pick one, and say what you'd do about it.  I'd say the issue with Wal-Mart and so on would be an excellent place to start.

Racism is a quantifiable issue that we can and have and need to take more steps to address.  If we addressed that issue, walmart would still be a welfare queen.....but it wouldn't be a welfare queen abetted by racist institutional policies.  On the other end of it, if we cut walmart off the tit - those racist institutional policies would remain.

I'd say the extreme wealth at the top really is a problem-- not because it's unfair, but because those dollars represent real goods and services that people have to provide (or could potentially be paid to provide), and they are trapped like souls in a magic crystal.

Understand, though, that true productivity requires a level of inspiration-- like the desire to win a war, or the awareness that superior effort will bring real rewards.

Understand..Benny, that even if we didn't do anything about wealth calcifying at the top - we could still do something about the ethnic disparity at the bottom.  I don;t think we need to get into a war for that.....and one of the problems -of- racism is that superior effort -does not- bring real rewards.  

The bits about the profitability of racism in the prison system, of economic and institutional exploitation, and the calcification of wealth at the top (read: white) go directly to your question about how much of the misfortune of african americans can be laid directly at the feet of white oppressors. While I don;t personally contextualize racism that way....that is, in the classical sense, an issue of white oppressors dicking over their human chattel.

I also giggle everytime you talk about productivity..because slaves are pretty fuckin productive. Another one of the problems of racism is that no matter how productive we become...minorities do not share equally in those gains, not for equivalent contribution..not even for greater contribution.

Yeah, me too.  But there aren't a lot of cops there who are just driving around looking for action.  In poor areas, the cops are already there.  They don't need a tip-off or some anonymous intel, they can just drive around picking up obvious drug-deals like grapes off a vine.  Is this not true?

They could do the same in a gated community..but they don't..because they just aren't there.  Is there any explicitly racist thing you -won't- carry water for?

Hmmmm.

I don't hear about a lot of gang violence or sales of drugs on the street, especially with strangers.  Can you bring some numbers?

Educate yourself.  

Productivity is not trickle-down economics.  Trickle-down economics is tax breaks for rich people, on the belief that they'll be able to apply their advantage better than the working or middle class would.  That's horse-shit.

When I say productivity, I'm talking about creating jobs that can be paid for.  It sound like you have a problem with that, though I can't imagine a scenario in which you could.

What jobs will you be creating, how, and do you plan on offering..

Equal pay for equal work?  Social justice
Non discriminatory screening and hiring practices?  Social justice.
A work environment free of ethnic slurs and racial myths?  PC.

You really confuse me with your resistance on almost all of my proposals.  Do you feel prisoners with excessive terms should NOT be released?  Do you think that health and day cares should NOT be provided to poor families?  Do you feel that we should NOT try to be more productive, so that there's more pie to go around?

For the umpteenth time, I don't..just like I don't confuse you for a white supremacist.  I point out that you've swallowed their koolaid, which you demonstrably have. I don't waste my time with those assholes, I just crack jokes and move on to the next thread. They can't be helped. Can you? Since you need a simple soundbite, it doesn't matter how big the pie gets if I keep you from getting a slice. The problem is not how much pie there is to go around (remember georgia...?) the problem is the distribution of the pie. If and when there is little pie to go around, this should also be borne with some reasonable measure of equality - but here again it is not.

It's almost like your goal is to resist any positive effort because you WANT to have economic disparity to virtue signal about.  But that couldn't be it. . .

Color me confused, dude.

..you're doing it again, lol.

Let me condense this into a single sentence for you. The consequences of institutional and systemic (or structural) racism cannot be solved by imploring people to work harder and make more.

They can, in point of fact, be solved by imploring people like yourself to stop carrying water for racism. Normalized, racism becomes institutional policy with frightening speed. Accepted for what it is, directly confronted, and resoundingly derided - it turns those who would institute those policies into powerless loons on the fringe. Things is, it's not a once and done issue. The goal isn't to make up for slavery, for example. That time has long since past and it will never happen. The goal is to stop doing the things we do -today-, and then tomorrow keep -not- doing them. Obviously, the US (and more broadly the west) has failed spectacularly at this of late. That didn't just happen, it took work, it took propaganda..it took a willingness to believe the racists, again.

[Mister Agenda]

https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/18...acism-jobs

[The Grand Nudger]

Yabut, that's not racism..dontchaknow?  That's just picking the smarter whites and honorary whites, because science.

[robvalue]

Peterson is a god-damned bigoted, dishonest, cowardly primitive. Just my (correct) opinion.

[bennyboy]

https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/18...acism-jobs

Okay, well that's a pretty clear result. Good link.

Do they think it was a conscious choice or an unconscious bias?  Or if they didn't say, what do you think?

---

Peterson is a god-damned bigoted, dishonest, cowardly primitive. Just my (correct) opinion.

Man, I keep intending to buy the book, but then you guys get me half dissuaded from doing so. . . but then I have to listen to these two boobs talk about it.

--edit--

Oh. I just typed in the book name with the intent of paying to download it, and found it in a .pdf format in someone's online files. Probably not piracy. . .

[robvalue]

I would highly dissuade anyone from buying it. It contains more about his personal projections, whining and preaching than it does any actual help. I haven't read any of the "good" things I've been told he's written in the past, which had some sort of academic rigour, but they can't have been anything like this. It's pretty hard to even believe he's a psychologist based on the stuff he writes, so maybe it's partly an act for his incel audience, but I doubt it all is. It's more like this is the real him, when he doesn't have to meet any kind of standard.

[bennyboy]

I would highly dissuade anyone from buying it. It contains more about his personal projections, whining and preaching than it does any actual help. I haven't read any of the "good" things I've been told he's written in the past, which had some sort of academic rigour, but they can't have been anything like this. It's pretty hard to even believe he's a psychologist based on the stuff he writes, so maybe it's partly an act for his incel audience, but I doubt it all is. It's more like this is the real him, when he doesn't have to meet any kind of standard.

Well, I have a copy of the text, now, but it was always a .pdf.  The good news is I can quote from the book, but the bad news is we will have page numbers.

Why don't we start a Rules For Life v.2 thread and talk about issues with the book, like we should have done in this thread?

[robvalue]

I would however recommend reading it if you can get it without paying for it, as a study of Peterson's own psychology. I just wouldn't want any money to go to him as a result of writing this, nor for anyone to think this is actually a self-help book.

I would highly dissuade anyone from buying it. It contains more about his personal projections, whining and preaching than it does any actual help. I haven't read any of the "good" things I've been told he's written in the past, which had some sort of academic rigour, but they can't have been anything like this. It's pretty hard to even believe he's a psychologist based on the stuff he writes, so maybe it's partly an act for his incel audience, but I doubt it all is. It's more like this is the real him, when he doesn't have to meet any kind of standard.

Well, I have a copy of the text, now, but it was always a .pdf.  The good news is I can quote from the book, but the bad news is we will have page numbers.

Why don't we start a Rules For Life v.2 thread and talk about issues with the book, like we should have done in this thread?

Okay cool, yeah that sounds like a good idea. I will just insult him constantly though in place of any actual arguments (j/k)

[bennyboy]

I agree with that. It's a poor debate tactic to label someone up on their behalf, and to think that alone makes some sort of point. Sticking to the issues is much better.

I also agree about the extremes. Also, empty vessels make the most noise, as they say.

I know you don't like Peterson (loathe with a passion, maybe ), but what you're saying seems pretty much in accord with his view of identity politics-- that it puts people in the position of being "tribal agents." He talked about that in his interview on Bill Maher's show.