10 ms·

It's hard to se what Satoshi and Peterson have in common, aside from that they are two people Cowan would have never funded before they were famous.

Latteland 8y ago
Jordan Peterson is so controversial, why would you mention him in that interview? "Team" Satoshi actually solved fundamental problems and moved the world forward in cryptocurrency and associated underlying technology like blockchains, but Peterson has just stirred people up.
- majos 8y ago
  I am also curious about the allusion to Peterson. I am not aware of any huge societal contribution he has made beyond encouraging dueling op-eds. Certainly he has a devoted fan base, but I essentially never hear about him in real life. I'm not weighing in on how good or bad his ideas are. But I see way more of the blockchain in the world than I do (knowingly) of Peterson. What am I missing?
  - WaxProlix 8y ago
    I think you've mostly got it. AFAIK, other academics and such in Peterson's field(s) find his work mostly mediocre to laughable, so my best guess is that the person in question falls into the "avid fan" camp.
    - atomical 8y ago
      Cowen wouldn't be funding someone like Peterson for their academic credentials. Vitalik Buterin wasn't a heavy weight in academia when Peter Thiel took a chance on him.
  - nexus2045 8y ago
    I have thoroughly consumed a lot of Peterson content. I can vouch that aside from the political controversy, that he has a powerful message for young men: to find the meaning in life through responsibility and sacrifice, to go out there and make something of themselves. I have no idea why that it is "controversial" to be told to strive for something, and I don't see much alternatives other than self-help books. There are much more troubled, aimless people out there than you think, because if you've lived a fairly decent life yourself, you almost never come into contact with the guys that aren't doing so well and are in need of such a message. He's almost filling in as a father figure for young men where self-help did not suffice. The opposing side likes to attempt to character assassinate him by labelling as a right-wing bigot, but have never bothered to really listen to his message while holding the empathy that more unfortunate people DO need a message like that.
    - erikpukinskis 8y ago
      To me, his controversial argument is the idea that the academy is infested with communists who think you should be thrown in jail for using the wrong pronouns, and that an entire generation of college students is taking women's studies classes wherein they are taught that the problem with the world is that men exist and that they aren't enough like women. And that in these leftist circles you're not allowed to talk about sexism perpetrated by muslim men. And a bunch of other such theories. Sure, all of that exists in various crappy people in obscure corners of academia. But he makes it out to be widespread, and he makes it out that no dissenting voices are allowed to exist on the left or in academia. Neither of which is true. But more troubling, there's a community of right wing pundits who use Peterson and his theories to justify total vilification of the left and academia in their entirety. The impression you get from Peterson is that no gender studies professor has ever done anything except hate traditional values and the people who love them. There are people out there making constructive criticisms of overzealous leftists. Peterson seems to be choosing a purely divisive path. You can tell because he never talks to or about anyone on the left with more moderate views. He only engages the center right and the radical left, because fundamentally his goal isn't to reform the left, it's to justify his own rightward shift in his personal politics.
      - auganov 8y ago
        I find the obsession with gender studies particularly funny coming from a psychology professor. Given his fav topics he could be a men's studies professor for all I'm concerned.
      - quotemstr 8y ago
        After the events of the past few years, I don't think it's tenable to cast the problems Peterson highlights as occasional and obscure. Look at FIRE's speech code analysis: most universities have administrative restrictions on free inquiry. Look at Heterodox Academy's work on ideological bias: social science is 90% left, with something like 30% (from memory) calling themselves "radical". Look at the current replication crisis, which arises in part from fabrication of ideologically convenient results. I simply cannot agree with your assertion that Peterson et al are cherry-picking and that academia is fundamentally sound. These pathologies are too common and too widespread not to constitute some kind of systemic issue. I find your arguments unconvincing. Instead, I believe that a correction is long overdue. Disciplines that reject reason, empiricism, and rigor, that claim all truths are equally valid, and that hold the only valid goal of pedagogy is tearing down power dynamics --- these are indoctrination, not inquiry, and the public should not fund this activity. > no dissenting voices are allowed to exist on the left or in academia Academia really does apply extreme social and political pressure to unorthodox thinkers. Look at the campaign against Rachel Fulton Brown. > use Peterson and his theories to justify It's become common lately to argue that we shouldn't acknowledge certain facts because unscrupulous people might use them to justify something bad. This position is not tenable. The truth always gets out, and when it does, those suppressing it lose all of their influence and credibility. It's far better to acknowledge facts and work with them.
- bnjms 8y ago
  I would like to hear what strikes people as so controversial about Peterson? He and Satoshi are poor examples for article. But besides that I cannot understand how he is controversial when he appears to say not very much, though something part of the population in parts wants and needs to hear. I just don't understand why interviewers take shots at him or why YouTubers make obnoxious video clips from his videos.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - duckqlz 8y ago
    He argued against women having the right to be addressed by a gender inclusive pronoun in the 80s fell off the map and is now doing the same thing with minority and trans-people. Currently he is touted as a champion of freespeech while he is actively sueing a public university for defamation (millions).
    - setr 8y ago
      Doesn’t defamation specifically require false statements represented at truths? I’m not sure free speech is meant to allow for that as well (negative truths, represented as truths, are fine though)
    - Sag0Sag0 8y ago
      He calls people "postmodern marxist's" which is rather contradictory.
      - zaq_xsw 8y ago
        https://i.imgur.com/SyPtJ7Q.png https://i.imgur.com/SyPtJ7Q.png
    - zaq_xsw 8y ago
      He's now apparently inspiring pro-segregation arguments in Saudi Arabia: https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/1005302713985400833?s=19 https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/10053027139854008... His followers have absorbed some pretty terrible ideas from him. This was a comment about the recent decriminalization of homosexuality in India: https://i.imgur.com/W80VytS.png https://i.imgur.com/W80VytS.png
- cavisne 8y ago
  Feels like a line perfectly engineered for media attention.
  - zaq_xsw 8y ago
    I had to do a double-take. Satoshi and Peterson in the same sentence? One is famous for kickstarting decentralised currencies/markets/etc., and the other is famous for... Lobsters? Pronouns? [Saying that women shouldn't be allowed to wear makeup at work?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZrSrZpX5l8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZrSrZpX5l8). Very strange that Cowen seems to think they're somehow comparable. [Unrelated](https://i.redd.it/w412971qqf011.png https://i.redd.it/w412971qqf011.png).
TimSchumann 8y ago
I have a personal anecdote about your statement here. I was at a launch event for 'Create Your Own Economy' in Washington DC. It was a small event, at least small enough I had a chance to talk with Mr. Cowen uninterrupted for five or ten minutes while I bought a copy of his book. Having read Satoshi's whitepaper a month or so prior, and being pretty excited about it, I attempted to describe the idea of a currency without a central authority to Mr. Cowen. I don't remember his exact words, but his basic sentiment was 'That's not possible, and even if it is, nobody would value it'. The conversation made enough of an impression on him he signed my book 'To Tim - To the Idea of Fantasy'. So I 100% agree, there's no way he would have funded Satoshi. https://imgur.com/a/fsSMiB1 https://imgur.com/a/fsSMiB1
- jancsika 8y ago
  So there's only one out-- Cowen has designed his funding criteria such that even he cannot undermine its efficacy. Anyone know if this the case?
- sanderjd 8y ago
  It's possible (though perhaps not likely) that episodes like yours have made him more likely to take further-out ideas more seriously now than he did then. I mean, to me it seems like he should have stuck with his original reaction, but he seems pretty bullish on that stuff now, so maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him.
  - jnbiche 8y ago
    > so maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him Or maybe he's just jumping on bandwagons. I'm not sure that's the case, but it's another possibility.
  - captain_perl 8y ago
    > maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him. Actually, it looks like he was in fact correct.
    - 8y ago
jl2718 8y ago
I think he’s just trying to establish differentiation from Silicon Valley. Satoshi would not be welcome here either.
st1ck 8y ago
Both Bitcoin and Jordan Peterson's ideas require serious investment of effort to understand them in context. Unless you get cypherpunk, it takes time to get what's the point of Bitcoin. And unless you read Carl Jung, it takes time to get what in the hell Jordan Peterson is talking about in his lectures.

Latteland 8y ago

Jordan Peterson is so controversial, why would you mention him in that interview? "Team" Satoshi actually solved fundamental problems and moved the world forward in cryptocurrency and associated underlying technology like blockchains, but Peterson has just stirred people up.

majos 8y ago
I am also curious about the allusion to Peterson. I am not aware of any huge societal contribution he has made beyond encouraging dueling op-eds. Certainly he has a devoted fan base, but I essentially never hear about him in real life. I'm not weighing in on how good or bad his ideas are. But I see way more of the blockchain in the world than I do (knowingly) of Peterson. What am I missing?
- WaxProlix 8y ago
  I think you've mostly got it. AFAIK, other academics and such in Peterson's field(s) find his work mostly mediocre to laughable, so my best guess is that the person in question falls into the "avid fan" camp.
  - atomical 8y ago
    Cowen wouldn't be funding someone like Peterson for their academic credentials. Vitalik Buterin wasn't a heavy weight in academia when Peter Thiel took a chance on him.
- nexus2045 8y ago
  I have thoroughly consumed a lot of Peterson content. I can vouch that aside from the political controversy, that he has a powerful message for young men: to find the meaning in life through responsibility and sacrifice, to go out there and make something of themselves. I have no idea why that it is "controversial" to be told to strive for something, and I don't see much alternatives other than self-help books. There are much more troubled, aimless people out there than you think, because if you've lived a fairly decent life yourself, you almost never come into contact with the guys that aren't doing so well and are in need of such a message. He's almost filling in as a father figure for young men where self-help did not suffice. The opposing side likes to attempt to character assassinate him by labelling as a right-wing bigot, but have never bothered to really listen to his message while holding the empathy that more unfortunate people DO need a message like that.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    To me, his controversial argument is the idea that the academy is infested with communists who think you should be thrown in jail for using the wrong pronouns, and that an entire generation of college students is taking women's studies classes wherein they are taught that the problem with the world is that men exist and that they aren't enough like women. And that in these leftist circles you're not allowed to talk about sexism perpetrated by muslim men. And a bunch of other such theories. Sure, all of that exists in various crappy people in obscure corners of academia. But he makes it out to be widespread, and he makes it out that no dissenting voices are allowed to exist on the left or in academia. Neither of which is true. But more troubling, there's a community of right wing pundits who use Peterson and his theories to justify total vilification of the left and academia in their entirety. The impression you get from Peterson is that no gender studies professor has ever done anything except hate traditional values and the people who love them. There are people out there making constructive criticisms of overzealous leftists. Peterson seems to be choosing a purely divisive path. You can tell because he never talks to or about anyone on the left with more moderate views. He only engages the center right and the radical left, because fundamentally his goal isn't to reform the left, it's to justify his own rightward shift in his personal politics.
    - auganov 8y ago
      I find the obsession with gender studies particularly funny coming from a psychology professor. Given his fav topics he could be a men's studies professor for all I'm concerned.
    - quotemstr 8y ago
      After the events of the past few years, I don't think it's tenable to cast the problems Peterson highlights as occasional and obscure. Look at FIRE's speech code analysis: most universities have administrative restrictions on free inquiry. Look at Heterodox Academy's work on ideological bias: social science is 90% left, with something like 30% (from memory) calling themselves "radical". Look at the current replication crisis, which arises in part from fabrication of ideologically convenient results. I simply cannot agree with your assertion that Peterson et al are cherry-picking and that academia is fundamentally sound. These pathologies are too common and too widespread not to constitute some kind of systemic issue. I find your arguments unconvincing. Instead, I believe that a correction is long overdue. Disciplines that reject reason, empiricism, and rigor, that claim all truths are equally valid, and that hold the only valid goal of pedagogy is tearing down power dynamics --- these are indoctrination, not inquiry, and the public should not fund this activity. > no dissenting voices are allowed to exist on the left or in academia Academia really does apply extreme social and political pressure to unorthodox thinkers. Look at the campaign against Rachel Fulton Brown. > use Peterson and his theories to justify It's become common lately to argue that we shouldn't acknowledge certain facts because unscrupulous people might use them to justify something bad. This position is not tenable. The truth always gets out, and when it does, those suppressing it lose all of their influence and credibility. It's far better to acknowledge facts and work with them.
bnjms 8y ago
I would like to hear what strikes people as so controversial about Peterson? He and Satoshi are poor examples for article. But besides that I cannot understand how he is controversial when he appears to say not very much, though something part of the population in parts wants and needs to hear. I just don't understand why interviewers take shots at him or why YouTubers make obnoxious video clips from his videos.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- duckqlz 8y ago
  He argued against women having the right to be addressed by a gender inclusive pronoun in the 80s fell off the map and is now doing the same thing with minority and trans-people. Currently he is touted as a champion of freespeech while he is actively sueing a public university for defamation (millions).
  - setr 8y ago
    Doesn’t defamation specifically require false statements represented at truths? I’m not sure free speech is meant to allow for that as well (negative truths, represented as truths, are fine though)
  - Sag0Sag0 8y ago
    He calls people "postmodern marxist's" which is rather contradictory.
    - zaq_xsw 8y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/SyPtJ7Q.png https://i.imgur.com/SyPtJ7Q.png
  - zaq_xsw 8y ago
    He's now apparently inspiring pro-segregation arguments in Saudi Arabia: https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/1005302713985400833?s=19 https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/10053027139854008... His followers have absorbed some pretty terrible ideas from him. This was a comment about the recent decriminalization of homosexuality in India: https://i.imgur.com/W80VytS.png https://i.imgur.com/W80VytS.png
cavisne 8y ago
Feels like a line perfectly engineered for media attention.
- zaq_xsw 8y ago
  I had to do a double-take. Satoshi and Peterson in the same sentence? One is famous for kickstarting decentralised currencies/markets/etc., and the other is famous for... Lobsters? Pronouns? [Saying that women shouldn't be allowed to wear makeup at work?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZrSrZpX5l8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZrSrZpX5l8). Very strange that Cowen seems to think they're somehow comparable. [Unrelated](https://i.redd.it/w412971qqf011.png https://i.redd.it/w412971qqf011.png).

TimSchumann 8y ago

I have a personal anecdote about your statement here. I was at a launch event for 'Create Your Own Economy' in Washington DC. It was a small event, at least small enough I had a chance to talk with Mr. Cowen uninterrupted for five or ten minutes while I bought a copy of his book. Having read Satoshi's whitepaper a month or so prior, and being pretty excited about it, I attempted to describe the idea of a currency without a central authority to Mr. Cowen. I don't remember his exact words, but his basic sentiment was 'That's not possible, and even if it is, nobody would value it'. The conversation made enough of an impression on him he signed my book 'To Tim - To the Idea of Fantasy'. So I 100% agree, there's no way he would have funded Satoshi. https://imgur.com/a/fsSMiB1 https://imgur.com/a/fsSMiB1

jancsika 8y ago
So there's only one out-- Cowen has designed his funding criteria such that even he cannot undermine its efficacy. Anyone know if this the case?
sanderjd 8y ago
It's possible (though perhaps not likely) that episodes like yours have made him more likely to take further-out ideas more seriously now than he did then. I mean, to me it seems like he should have stuck with his original reaction, but he seems pretty bullish on that stuff now, so maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him.
- jnbiche 8y ago
  > so maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him Or maybe he's just jumping on bandwagons. I'm not sure that's the case, but it's another possibility.
- captain_perl 8y ago
  > maybe the feeling that he was wrong has chastened him. Actually, it looks like he was in fact correct.
  - 8y ago

jl2718 8y ago

I think he’s just trying to establish differentiation from Silicon Valley. Satoshi would not be welcome here either.

st1ck 8y ago

Both Bitcoin and Jordan Peterson's ideas require serious investment of effort to understand them in context. Unless you get cypherpunk, it takes time to get what's the point of Bitcoin. And unless you read Carl Jung, it takes time to get what in the hell Jordan Peterson is talking about in his lectures.