According to Wiki Bill Nye gave up his engineering job @ Boeing to pursue comedy, writing and performing jokes. I always liked Billy but I think Louie was a lot funnier.
Your criticism of the sainted Bill Nye is spot on. I think he is fine when he talks about basic science and accepted science, but he does have a hair-trigger to go off the deep end of the pool in areas he is not well-versed. Peterson is no more of an intellectual than that ridiculous James Damore guy formerly @ google. I decided to watch a few interviews and talks, AGAIN, of his, to give a good list. Peterson by-and-large just assumes that we live in a a meritocracy (I don't). Peterson assumes that women are paid less because... children? Peterson assumes men don't bear responsibility to take care of children. That's women's-work so you can work 65-80hrs a week and dedicate your life to your work. The women are just there to carry on the species. Peterson assumes that men and women are innately inclined to certain professions, e.g. nursing vs. engineering. (not specific on if it is due to culture vs DNA. Probably intentionally being obtuse, because if it's cultural, that means we can change it. If he says biological, then 99+% of serious biologists will call BS on that claim.) Has come up with the term "agreeable," which means people like to get along instead of pushing ahead in an entrepreneurial/capitalist style, leads to difference in income. ===> Women are agreeable; this is their natural state. They take "caregiver" jobs. "They're doing great in the medical field!" Never gives any indication that we can change our culture. The minute (my-noot) cross-section of his own tiny realm of experience in time is just "the way it is." Ridiculously fatalistic, like all these people who say no legislation will ever ensure a school shooting won't happen again, so let's not do anything. Pretty much says that having women in the workplace leads to sexual harassment. Men and women can't work together without harassment, because men don't understand (and I guess are completely incapable of understanding) the "new and evolving" rules of proper male/female conduct in the workplace. Apparently, the situation is degrading terribly quickly. It's spreading everywhere in all HR department!s across the Western World!!! Will someone please think of the childre......!!!!!!!!!!! oh, wait. The women got it. I take particular offense to this statement, because he's basically giving cover for the incredibly sexist culture that exists in academia, finance, everywhere... His whole argument is that women are caregivers, decide in their mid-thirties that they want to have kids, and give up on the 65-80hr work weeks it takes to be a real high-paid capitalist professional. Oh, and they wear make up and cute outfits, so they're making it impossible. Pathetic! Women only wear make-up and heels to be sexually provocative. (But don't they leave the workplace at 30's to do kids?) So it's women's fault that they dress up and paint their faces, not our patriarchal cultural expectations that heap ridiculous amounts of scrutiny on women's physical appearance. I guess their whole point of being in the workplace wearing make up and heels is to bag a high-powered professional man so she can creat super-babies? He never, EVER, considers the plight of the poor or minorities. He's only talking about the White white-collar realm. (Minorities are cool as long as they adapt to current norms, because that's what you gotta do to succeed in this world.) He speaks at a rapid pace and high-pitch tone. He just keeps talking and talking and talking without leaving time to process his statements, which I think is a tactic to slip by a bunch of BS/dogwhistles to his audience and hopefully passed his interviewers. He passes himself off as a pro-establishment self-help "how to rise in the capitalist hierarchy." But basically he's nothing different than the Proud Boy BS that tells men that if they follow these rules, then they will succeed and be entitled to everything our capitalist society has to offer. (Oh, and, by the way, women are to blame why you haven't gotten there yet.) Have you looked into how much Patreon cash Peterson's gotten, and how much his book made pedaling this Trumpian BS? No. I haven't read or paid attention to Thaddeus Russell. Seems much more legitimate than Peterson on a brief search and browse. Probably because he hasn't made a news-worthy ass out of himself. Kind of like a Howard Zinn, but I can't ascertain from brief review if he also engages in let-me-tell-you-how-to-think-Howard Zinn-ness (and Texas School Board).
That's yeoman's work cause I didn't have the patience to wade through the videos. But if Bill Nye is a self-promoting scienc-y guy (and Neil degrasse Tyson is to some extent in astrophysics) who can be shallow on some topics, does it really matter so much? Whereas Peterson is a butthurt white Canadian prof with misogynist leanings attracting alt-right douchebags (but he sure doesn't like that. No siree!) to his speeches. IMO he can be a much more malevolent force on society with his strain of pop psychology.
Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump -- two men blaming the female victim. Here's a clue, Bernie: Never say a sentence that Donald Trump could just as well have said. Never do that.
The Left will lose until it learns to hate all forms of dehumanization, and to organize that hate the way the Right has done since forever.
I think some people are still making the mistake of thinking that, if she wasn't a woman, they wouldn't have attacked her. That's almost certainly wrong. Almost anybody with the same political profile would have been attacked, just in a slightly different way. His point about the russkies being more interested in attacking HRC than supporting him is also probably accurate.
I don't think Bernie is sexist. I have no problem with Bernie, just that statement. But I accept the implicit rebuke. Bernie's comment was no big deal in the grand scheme of things, and this is not the time for the opposition to eat its own.
Oh hey! Everyone remember that amazing thinker, Steven Pinker, mention above? pic.twitter.com/b3D9JF3hEJ— Adia Benton (@Ethnography911) February 28, 2018 He glosses over the terrible Tuskegee syphilis study.
When I think of sexist/racist/homophobic/antisemitic/whatever people in the states, he's not who I'd think of straight away, tbh. In terms of the other people around the aggressive parsing of any comment or throwaway line seems a little silly, as you say.
Has anyone been following this Louis Farrakhan/Women's March train wreck? I give Jake Tapper credit at CNN for staying on top of this, because most of the left leaning media is quietly sweeping this under the rug. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tamika-mallory-fan-louis-farrakhan-people-outraged-184926181.html Here are some gems from the speech ... Who was in attendance? Tamika Mallory, one of the co chairs of the Women's March that drew 500,000 protesters on the streets of DC last year. Tamika got a special shout out from Farrakhan during the speech. Here's a summary from the Anti Defamation League More summary from a journalist from a progressive Yiddish language publication : Here we have an anti semitic speech that would make David Duke blush, and we have some of the most important grassroots leaders on the left standing and cheering. Farrakhan has attacked Jews, white people, women and LGBTQ people relentlessly his entire life. And yet here we are ... This is the sort of thing that some people on the left seem to be OK with. If those three women don't resign from their co-chair positions, as far as I'm concerned the entire organization has lost all credibility in my eyes. This is one of Mallory's tweets justifying her actions : Wow ... this just makes it worse considering a lot of the critical things she has said about other racists in our society. I mean, what's the point of criticizing Trump or David Duke? I mean, who's to judge if I break bread with David Duke?
I'm sure there is a perfectly acceptable excuse why liberal hypocrisy and duplicity are perfectly acceptable and those same attributes in conservatives are not. There is literally no difference between the shit that comes out of Farrakhan's mouth and the shit that comes out of Milo's mouth. Yet when Milo speaks, people think it's necessary to destroy the village to save it. I'd like to see both of them die in a fiery car crash, just pointing out the blatant hypocrisy at play.
Can't believe Farrakhan's even a thing anymore. And yes, she's obviously a moron for attending it and making excuses for it. OTOH Pat Buchanan worked for Nixon, was a respected talking head for decades and ran for president. So the levels to which both parties let their loons aspire to is most definitely not equal. And obviously now with Trump being a racist, misogynist bigot and all...
I was surprised to see that he is still alive. So some women organizing the march like Farrakan? You can be anti-Semitic and hate Trump, too, I guess. If the media is sweeping it under the rug (I suppose they are, I never heard about it until now), maybe it's because this douche isn't news any more.
Hold on. Which candidate was at a Farrakhan rally? Sure, call out "the left's" idiocy when warranted. But we have an administration that sold us out to Russian interests and continues to let them F with us with absolutely no repercussions. Let's not lose sight of the big picture here.