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Supplementary Materials 6: Christian Sensemaking, Hipster Race Realists, & Marijuana Pseudoscience

🕑 Added 2024-05-10 13:42:37 +0000 UTC

Comments

CHUSSTERR

Peterson and Brand should agree on a favorite yummy dish and have a competition to describe it using the most words and concepts.

Julie

Groovy Matt

Rod Hodges

Listening to JP and Russell Brand is literally making me sick to my stomach. I better stop but can’t turn away. I enjoy DTG and don’t want u guys to stop but I would totally understand if one day you just said “wtf are we wasting our time on this nonsense for”.

Gray

One of the things DTG has really turned me onto is the seemingly inevitable climb of gurus up the gurometer. I used to quite enjoy listening to some of Brand’s content when he first reinvented himself as a a pseudo-socialist commentator. He was always massively pretentious but his undeniable gift of the gab combined with highlighting some of the less healthy aspects of our current political and economic systems made for some entertaining listening. But man. What a massive twat he’s become. Or perhaps always was and I was just not critical enough of his impenetrable word salad.

Matt

Brand is right to call himself an Ouroboros, if instead of eating it's tail, it was disappearing up it's own arse. Jesus wept, it is painful to listen to these sycophants.

Christopher Kavanagh

Love Nathan Barley!

Michael

Yes, I would argue that in America the Guardian is not mainstream media. But to be clear when I talk about mainstream I’m talking about the ability to walk up to any rando and “say have you heard of/do you get news from this outlet?” With the Guardian for most people the answer is no. Lots of people have a NYT subscription to feel informed but don’t go much deeper than that (if they even read the NYT daily) then you have people on the right who’d call the NYT a commie outlet, and of course you do politically junkies who are aware of all it. But they are a minority As to your snippet from the NYT. I didn’t say you can’t find an opinion piece sympathetic to Palestine or the protestors. I’m saying the coverage is disproportionate, and doesn’t undo the damage they’ve done since Oct 7 with false reporting that they have yet to retract. You still have people claiming Hamas put babies in ovens as a result of it https://theintercept.com/2024/02/27/zaka-october-7-israel-hamas-new-york-times/

Christopher Kavanagh

So Michael, is your argument that the Guardian is not mainstream media? Because these titles sound like they are representing exactly the opinion you mention... "Justice, not hatred, drives student protests" "How the right is weaponizing pro-Palestinian campus protests in the US" "Campus protest crackdowns claim to be about antisemitism – but they’re part of a rightwing plan" "Nearly all Gaza campus protests in the US have been peaceful, study finds" "Police let violent mobs attack UCLA students. This is what lawlessness looks like" As for the NYT... "I Was Once a Student Protester. The Old Hyperbole Is Now Reality. Is this what a police state looks like?" "How Pro-Palestinian Students Pushed Trinity College Dublin to Divest" "The Campus Protests Signal the End of an Era for the Democrats The alliance of the elite establishment and progressives is showing signs of fraying." "A Chaotic Night at U.C.L.A. Raises Questions About Police Response Counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment for several hours without police intervention, and none were arrested. Now, the police response is under investigation." , etc. This is just with 2 mins of searching...

SHOUNAK SARKAR

Oof those Red Scare ladies must be doing a bit. I mean come on! How do you keep describing yourself as "liberals" and "leftists" while uncritically embracing the old fashioned intellectual racist and his poorly substantiated arguments? It's not just that, they also adopt this insufferable, hyper-liberal way of speaking in that very hip Jersey girl / LA Valley girl / stoner hippie accent. If these people were actual far-leftists occupying the conspiracy theory horse-shoe spectrum, I don't think they would be so blase about embracing race science. They would be your more "DSA socialist, Biden is doing genocide" types. I believe these people are Bannonite trojan horses for the hard-right.

Martin Pelchat

You guys are doing a public service by exposing these fraudsters

Kevin Nyberg

@ 54:25: Russell imitating Jordan doing his Rules for Life… 🤣 👨‍🍳💋

Michael

I literally point out the NYTs is biased in its coverage, and not telling the truth and you use the NYT to tell me I’m wrong without even citing a source? I’d love to see what you’re talking about. But as the Guardian points out it’s really not the students https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/article/2024/may/06/ucla-protester-mob-attack

Asisipho Guga

As a New York Times everyday reader, you are not telling the truth. I read from the NYT that the Pro-Isreal people are the ones who started the violence. People like you want mainstream news to affirm your beliefs and not tell the story

Michael

In terms of the NYT, WaPo and CNN (the average American isn’t going to the guardian) there’s been a lot of focus on the spectacle of the encampments rather than the substance of what the kids are actually demanding. Plus there’s an (intentional, IMO) misportrayal over the sources of violence which have been perpetrated largely by counter-protesters and the police

elcid

Just one of the works of genius from the great Chris Morris. Due a rewatch methinks.

Christopher Kavanagh

Is this true? Like this is just the coverage from the US Guardian... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-campus-protests

Alex H

The Red Scare race science clips were bracing. Not even JAQing off. They were fully into it.

Linda Sears

Yes, those are not news sources in my view.

Gretchen Koch

NPR and the Guardian are probably the sources you could expect to get the most reliable information from. I was thinking of examples like: https://nypost.com/2024/05/11/us-news/majority-of-student-protestors-sympathize-with-hamas-survey/ https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/may-5-anti-israel-protest-colleges-campus-police-arrest Calling student protestors "pro-Hamas," and saying they're "anti-Israel" (sometimes "anti-Semitic") is incendiary and just counter-factual.

Michael

On the point of Twitch streamers covering current events I would generally agree that we need strong institutional journalism, however the Israel-Gaza conflict is an area where mainstream media is showing a clear bias in their reporting and headlines. I think there’s a lot of value to hearing directly from people on the ground, which is not a perspective you see from these outlets

Paul Bowman

@Níall - my bad. That's an indulgent back-reference to comments on the Flint Dibble on Joe Rogan thread. "Zetetic" is an obscure Greek-origin term for "proceeding by enquiry", but has been appropriated by the Flat-earther community for their particular brand of melted epistemics. It's taking the "seeing is believing" principle to new heights of anti-establishment/anti-science paranoia, basically. Originally inspired by Joe's "No, but LOOK at it man! Doesn't that look man-made..." insistence despite Flint's patient explanation that that's not really how archaeologists determine what's natural or not (microscopes, scanners, x-rays, etc).

Chandra Collins

Wow, what a whirlwind of hot air that has no semblance of sense. Brand’s vomiting of big words at least made me look up the word penumbra. Brand is like the representation of the hypocrisy of Christianity, spewing sacrifice and forgiveness of sins, but not taking responsibility for his actions against women. You guys are heroes for trying to make sense of those back and forths. My head is still spinning in confusion!

Linda Sears

Yep. I’m kind of surprised that they aren’t bringing up string theory as well since it’s got all kinds of fun ideas to play around with like vibrational strings, multiple dimensions, and a theory of everything all wrapped up in a nice bow, made out of strings. It also has the advantage of being very difficult to test physically. My almost 90 year old dad does understand some of the ideas (I don’t). He’d shake his head at these types and say “bullshit baffles brains.”

Michael Lewinger

It's those damned thought experiments.

Marcin Junczys-Dowmunt

The inventory of segments however is fixed, usually learned based on some other process.

Marcin Junczys-Dowmunt

Nope, initialization is fully random. Embeddings get learned like everything else. So JP's description was fine, surprisingly.

Shane Partington

Great episode. I still get frustrated when folk with metaphysical worldviews bring up quantum physics to bolster their claims. I’ve tried to explain to a friend that most of us (including myself) have a surface understanding at best of QP. Yet, some seem to have amazing confidence in their understanding of the subject.

Adam Sher

Dunno anything about him

Christopher Kavanagh

Glad to have been of service!

Jeff Faulkner

Before Russell I’d always kinda liked British accents.

Linda Sears

Steve Sailer

aneladgam_varelse

Tho “we don’t know who’s the Jesus, who’s the serpent!” was wonderful, shittalking lvl gay frogs

aneladgam_varelse

I think I prefer Jordan Peterson over Russel Brand, tho it’s though choice. Jordan is more pleasant to listen (or maybe it’s because I generally dislike British accent?) and sounds more sincere - Jordan talks needlessly dramatic, Russel is kinda self-congratulatory. I can’t decide if sheer unpredictableness of Russel’s speech is more interesting or more annoying.

Guruspod 2

Big Shake won’t get to me. I’m going to keep telling the world that it tastes awful

Guruspod 2

“Supplements & Materials (mostly steak knives)

Guruspod 2

My understanding is that the embedding are fixed: they are the “dictionary” that encodes the raw text. Yes, the BP, attention etc is where the deep learning happens, but I don’t believe it affects the dictionary; rather it operates on the dictionary.

Guruspod 2

The Red Scare ladies might be the only people on the internet who haven’t heard that correlation != causation so they think he’s a “stats guy”

Guruspod 2

Klaus Barbie Girls!

Guruspod 2

Be careful out there kids!

Roscoe 112

I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened qznt had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away.

Guruspod 2

Big salute to Dan D from me too. I raised a glass the day I heard. +1 on deepities, it definitely informed the pseudoprofound bullshit concept

Guruspod 2

I feel like my mouth forms an involuntary sneer, which is very unbecoming

Guruspod 2

1) The sad truth is indeed I am a lumpy middle-aged man trying desperately to fend off entropy 2) I thought Bob’s speculative encompassing worldview was kinda fun and interesting, but IDK if one can take that kind of thing too seriously

Guruspod 2

I love avante Garde Jazz, so yeah, the analogy is very unfair to Jazz

Daniel Reed Miller

Eat away the memory lil worm friend!!! 😄

aneladgam_varelse

I listen to this while getting drunk and when Jordan said that death makes things real I instantly thought „oh so god isn’t real, god can’t die”

Daniel Reed Miller

Exactly. Similar with any well practiced/performed improvisation form. It’s the true art of listening. This is almost the opposite in every way, lol. They’re musicians who know how to play a lot of notes and superficially dazzling riffs but don’t have any kind of “ear”.

aneladgam_varelse

Christianity is social contagion

Linda Sears

Plus the musicians actually have to listen to each other or it all falls apart.

Linda Sears

Bebop jazz has the advantage, in my opinion, of being highly inventive, complex, and fun to listen to.

Kyle Wilson

This monologue duet is truly something else. As Matt mentioned this is a sort of bebop or jazz that these two clowns are performing, just riffing & trading manic word salads to enthusiastic head nods and nauseating yes, anding.

Kyle Wilson

Are Matt’s ManShakes just knock off AG1?

Adam Sher

Who was it?

Linda Sears

Could you explain how the media is or has been misleading on the campus protests? I mostly get my news from NPR and sources like The Guardian. I don’t mind people learning about the protest from online gaming streams so long as the viewers understand that the person reporting may have their own slant as well.

Tim Tripp

Yes, that segment was even more painful than the JP and Brand segment.

Linda Sears

For me the worst part was Red Scare at the end. Introducing a young, new audience to white supremacist ideas. What could possibly go wrong???😢

Idan Ca

Loved it!!

Colin Fardey

Thank you to JBP and RB for reminding me of this sketch .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MWpHQQ-wQg

Níall Faughnan

What's zetetic epistemics?

Chomagerider

But isn't his point usually rather that forcing less developed areas of the world to forego industrialisation in the name of climate change is too big a sacrifice to ask of them?

David Hohle

What does Freud say about an imaginary word spelled qznt? Jk don’t care.

Blake Lever

Love the pod - great episode - two thoughts: 1) My concept of Matt as an effortlessly fit and infinitely seductive silver fox has come crashing down to earth - thanks for the self-confidence boost 2) While listening to the sharp analysis of the Peter-brandian babble, I kept wondering if yall have read either Moral Animal or Non-Zero by previously guru-ometered Bob Wright who explores this kind of all encompassing explanation of the human condition and if you might find it more cohesive or convincing?

Roland Weber

Takes years of practice.

Roscoe 112

Mattrix multiplication once again deconstructs the guru eigenstructure to uncover several degenerate nodes in the phase space.

Chomagerider

That first part about Matt's attempts to be healthier...or shall we say optimize. Careful, you're THIS close to ordering that good AG1 and embarking on the carnivore diet😂

Christopher Kavanagh

Rhetoric theater is a great term

Maytree

Plenty plausible.

Marcin Junczys-Dowmunt

I was listening to this while walking around the city and hope people didn't see my visceral grimacing whenever one of the Brand clips was playing.

Douglas Gearhart

dude, do you realize that money isn't even REAL??

Lina Neild Robinson

How do people talk like this when they are sober?

Gretchen Koch

Oh, and my (unfortunately recently-passed) favorite philosopher, Daniel Dennett (I was going to say "mentor, but I only met him a few times), coined a lovely term for the laughable attempt to state mundane facts as if they're world-shaking insights: "deepity." A deepity is true but trivial, making it especially noxious because you can't argue straight-on against its accuracy-- that's not the problem. The problem is that it's not a fucking revelation, and the only people who think otherwise are toddlers, toddler-minded gurus, and their toddler-minded followers.

Gretchen Koch

i dunno; it doesn't sound to me like Taylor Lorenz is endorsing anyone specifically. The George Floyd protests and the current pro-Palestinian freedom protests are two examples of when a story is wildly misrepresented by the media, to the extent that it damages the accuracy of public perception and portrays the actual victims as aggressors, and vice versa. Piker might not be a great choice to represent that movement, but hot damn, we're starved as a society for the bigger picture in those cases, and the impact on viewers/listeners can have tremendous consequences. And yes, as an American I hate acknowledging such a thing. It's sickening to think of your average American as a Trump-like toddler who needs to have stories read out loud with accompanying illustrations in crayon, but I don't actually believe that's the case for most of us. Most of us are kept in the dark and would never come across the views Lorenz is talking about if they *weren't* on Twitch. No, we shouldn't be getting our news via a gaming network. But if traditional news sources aren't do their job, how can people be blamed for finding the truth elsewhere, and writing relieved articles about it when they do?

Monica B.

اهلن! Came here to say this, too!

Emma

Bahaha.

Jeanne H-B

Ack! JPB and Russell Brand are insufferable. I felt like I was stuck at a diner with two ego-wanking boors, talking at each other. Like freshman college boys showing off, voices raised so we other diners are the reluctant audience, the boys blessing the peasants with their Deep Thoughts. Except these two are middle aged men, ffs.

Adam Sher

I made it 15 minutes. I previously said no more streamers and now I will eat a sock. Bring back the streamers.

S Garvey

I hate to reduce it to old white dudes mad that the old social hierarchy has been deconstructed and their conception of self is/was related to that hierarchy and they feel the symbolic loss of status and they concoct elaborate theories to deal with it. But I just did. or, to say it more concisely - it's cope.

Maytree

Only if your the guy running for governor in California, and I which case you have my vote.

S Garvey

Big Wasabi.

Kung fu fan

Supplemental Materials™️

S Garvey

good episode, lads. If you need someone to do some low-key experimentation with marijuana to dis/prove Huberman hmu. I can do. ;- )

Gavin Ryan

Jordan and Russell…. Two empty vessels trying to out-noise each other

Linda Sears

It almost sounded like Brand wanted his sin of self indulgence to be worse than the sin of pride so that his elevation from sin to salvation could be more impressive.

Chris Clark

“Priapus, man…Priapus!” 😂😂

Roland Weber

Oh dear, thanks once more for reminding me about the dangerous corners of the internet. I promise to stay away from there!

Douglas Gearhart

Bint, or, بنت، is also Arabic for girl. Not derogatory

Linda Sears

On the sacrifice story, it seems that parenthood is a prime example of sacrifice that would far predate Christianity, especially for the mother. Happy Mother’s Day!

Chris Clark

If heaven is Russell Brand’s voice and he is God, then take me to hell please.

Maytree

JP seems to me to be on a life long mission to rationalize his particular moral/political worldview, leading to strained leaps less grounded in science than in motivated reasoning. Trying to take the discussion about “mapping onto reality” in evolution even a little bit seriously, I hear him equating “mapping to reality” as an evolutionary process as “Good” and “Truth” rather than simply as way to achieve a level of accuracy that’s good enough to survive long enough to reproduce. (A huge intellectual leap!) And then he leaps further to such-and-such myth (eg the Christ story) is ergo Truth because we are primed to tell true stories as a species due to our evolutionary mapping to reality/“Good” (or something like that). I don’t know if there is any philosophical scholarship that takes this line of reasoning seriously but it hits me as classic, unsupported sophistry.

Dries T.

Haha, +1 for Klaus Barbie Girls!

Devin Poore

Jordan performing self flagellations because of his pathological need to virtue signal how much he understands and values notions of sacrifice while simultaneously scolding anyone who brings up climate change on the basis of the profound injustice inherent in asking anyone in the first world to make any degree of material sacrifice... never gets old. I mentioned in another thread at some point that the guy is incoherence incarnate. This is another great example of that. No actual principles. Just rhetoric theater.

Paul Bowman

On the hipster racism thing, at 1:31:50ish, one of the Klaus Barbie Girls says "..but I love to go into those types of arenas and say, like, uh, 'You should pay attention to what you see with your own eyes, because, uh, the reality usually conforms to uh *giggle* what you're observing". Yet another clear-cut case of Zetetic epistemics in the wild. (I'm really warming to this theme)

Paul Bowman

It's actually from Arabic - it's the female (daughter of) equivalent of bin (son of), used in Arabic names that list progenitors (e.g. Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz...etc). Appropriated by Brit colonials as racist pejorative for Arab women generally, and then wormed its way into the language as a more generalised misogynist slur.

Dries T.

Hey wait, so what was the nicer thing on the agenda that Matt was referring to? I sure could have done with something just slightly less excruciating than hipster racism...

Unfitforpurpose

It's old fashioned but it speard across the UK.

Allan Hutton

I just listened on, I thought it was only Scottish 🤷🏻‍♂️

Allan Hutton

B I N T is a Scottish slur for a woman 😂😂😂 On ye go JBP ya dipstick

Anonymous ethicist, not a serial killer at all, just asking questions.

The racism stats at the end, could probably be entirely explained by a boom of visible minorities being pushed into gig work, people end up driving a lot more than they normally do.

brianshmrian

I think LLMs start with their word/token embeddings randomized and adjust them during training using back propagation just like other parameters?

Unfitforpurpose

Brand responding to Peterson like an improv player whose just been given a particularly tough prompt he needs to free associate his way out of might be the most honest version of him we'll ever hear.