Jordan Peterson and Glenn Greenwald Discuss Censorship and Meaning

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I've listened to this podcast several times. It's long, but it is extremely thoughtful, engaging, disturbing, but also hopeful and celebratory of the human spirit. It involves Jordan Peterson and Glenn Greenwald. These are two of my most cherished thinkers. I am inspired and provoked by many of the topics that they explore here. Topics include censorship, propaganda, the history of these things in the United States. Also, the relationship between religion and politics, and what goes wrong when religion is absorbed into politics. And there's even some meaning of life moments. I took the time to transcribe a large chunk of this discussion, and I am sharing it with the hope that those of you who listen to it or read it will also find it worthwhile.

I asked Grok to crank out a basic table of contents to this interview:

Min 21:30

1. Censorship of RFK Jr. by Google and the tactic of starting with hated figures like Alex Jones

2. Expansion of censorship to mainstream voices, including Devin Nunes and Rand Paul

3. Reasons for increasing censorship: Generational shifts in values among Millennials and Gen Z, and the impact of Trump's election

4. Depiction of Trump as an existential evil justifying extreme measures, including the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and Sam Harris's views

5. Connection to post-9/11 clampdown on civil liberties, transformation of airports into authoritarian spaces

Min 27:35

6. Reflections on 9/11 trauma, the war on terror, and how airport security conditioned obedience to authority

7. Threats to liberty from fear rather than greed; free speech as equivalent to free thought and essential for adaptation

8. George Orwell on tyranny through mind control; the internet's shift from liberation to control, Snowden revelations

9. Biblical phrase "render unto Caesar"; collapse of religious domain into politics leading to unsophisticated good vs. evil wars

10. Personal background on religion; hubris in censorship; human need for spirituality, politics as a substitute for religion

11. Discussions with Douglas Murray on humanism needing a religious framework; Carl Jung on rationality bounded by the dream

12. Grappling with ethics and morality without religion; necessity of spirituality to avoid nihilism

13. Response to materialist atheists; human relationship with the larger whole; introduction to the story of Abraham

These excerpts start at Minute 21:30 of the above video. Glenn Greenwald 20% of Democratic Party voters say they intend to vote for RFK, Jr. for president. And the most powerful corporations, or one of the richest and most powerful corporations ever to exist, Google sweeps in and says, This is something that you are not permitted to be heard. Glenn Greenwald And what happened was, what always is the tactic of sensors is they always pick a test case in the beginning that they believe is someone who is sufficiently hated or disliked so that everybody will acquiesce to the precedent, simply because their emotions for that person are so high. So the first person to really be deplatformed in this collusive effort by Silicon Valley was Alex Jones. And Peter Thiel was on the board of Facebook at the time. Mark Andreessen in Silicon Valley, and a few other people stood up at the time and said, no matter how much you hate Alex Jones, this precedent is going to work its way slowly, or maybe not even so slowly, to expand into the kinds of voices that you probably think shouldn't be censored. And by the point that you cheer the precedent in the first instance, because you allow your emotional dislike for this person to outweigh your rational capacities, it will be too late the precedent is already implemented, and then you're left to just bicker about its application, rather than the principle itself. Glenn Greenwald And that's precisely what has happened. They began quickly censoring mainstream conservative voices. Devin Nunes went to rumble in part to escape from Google censorship, and then a huge stream of people did as well. One of the most shocking things that happened along those lines, Rand Paul questioned a couple of epidemiologists, scientists who were testifying before the US Senate about the possible efficacy of ivermectin and other alternative medication for covid. It was a Senate hearing, a hearing in the United States Senate. Rand Paul put it on his YouTube channel as a excerpt of this hearing, and Google decided that was something that ought not to be heard as well.

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Stereotypes are Generally Accurate

We tell each other to avoid using stereotypes, but more than 50 studies have assessed the accuracy of demographic, national, political, and other stereotypes. Consider this article, for example: "Stereotype Accuracy is One of the Largest and Most Replicable Effects in All of Social Psychology.". Excerpts:

Stereotype accuracy is one of the largest and most replicable effects in all of social psychology. Richard et al (2003) found that fewer than 5% of all effects in social psychology exceeded r’s of .50. In contrast, nearly all consensual stereotype accuracy correlations and about half of all personal stereotype accuracy correlations exceed .50.

The evidence from both experimental and naturalistic studies indicates that people apply their stereotypes when judging others approximately rationally. When individuating information is absent or ambiguous, stereotypes often influence person perception. When individuating information is clear and relevant, its effects are “massive” (Kunda & Thagard, 1996, yes, that is a direct quote, p. 292), and stereotype effects tend to be weak or nonexistent. This puts the lie to longstanding claims that “stereotypes lead people to ignore individual differences.”

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Minority Can Rule: 3.5% of People is Sometimes Enough to Evoke Widespread Change

Can a tiny sliver of people change society.  Yes. 3.5% is often enough.  That's one person out of 30. It's happened often, even if the 3.5% are non-violent, as long as they are a cohesive and disciplined vocal minority:

Why cling to the myth that real change needs majorities—when data spanning a century proves a committed, nonviolent 3.5% has never failed? Erica Chenoweth’s research: Hundreds of movements analyzed. Once sustained participation hits 3.5%—strategic, disciplined, peaceful—success is guaranteed. No exceptions. The Civil Rights Movement nailed it: The 1963 March drew ~250,000 (<0.2% of Americans), but the real power was the unseen network—carpools, sit-ins, daily courage—that turned moral force into unstoppable momentum. Margaret Mead was right: Only small, thoughtful groups ever change the world. Now it’s proven. Key insight: This works beyond activism—in business, innovation, personal growth. Stop chasing consensus. Build your aligned 3.5%. Which movement (or moment in your life) shows this rule in action? What could you shift by focusing on that core minority?

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The Problem with Experts

Jordan Peterson explaining Hayek’s “knowledge problem” argument. Many experts lack humility and willingness to adapt based on new facts, especially when they are economically and bureaucratically entrenched. The crowd is often wise and many experts fail to keep tuned in:

The proposition that central planning will work is the proposition that you can substitute one expert mind for a million distributed expert minds.

That’s obviously not the case, because each person is going to have knowledge that pertains to their locality that isn’t accessible to everyone.

“So it’s much better to let everyone make the decisions and sum them.

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Bret Weinstein’s Approach to Immigration

I agree with Bret Weinstein's way of seeing Immigration:

My feeling is this. I'm not pro-immigration. I'm not anti-immigration. What I want is for people who are not corrupt, who are well-informed about the issue, to figure out what the best level of immigration is and to set up a process that works.

I don't want to see any illegals. I want to see people who come in legally. I want to see the number. Maybe it's a high number. Maybe it's a low number. I don't know, but I'd like to see the right number. I'd like us to at least aspire to it.

And then most important of all, and I see this in both England and the US, somewhere along the line, we apparently decided it was impolite to ask people who wished to come to our countries, whether they liked us and aspired to be a part of our civilization. And my feeling is whatever the number is that we should be allowing in, I don't want any who don't aspire to be American. I want people who like it, who want to make the place better and want to participate in it because they see it as good. We should not be letting people in who want to destroy it. Obviously, I can't imagine that anyone has to say that out loud, but apparently it has to be said out loud because it's not obvious to a lot of people.

And the point is, it is what I just said anti-immigrant? No, it's anti-people who hate us. And I have a right to be anti-people who hate us...

Continue ReadingBret Weinstein’s Approach to Immigration