Daily Archives: May 16, 2021

Jordan Peterson addresses students at fhe Cambridge Union on November 02, 2018 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Chris Williamson / Getty Images)

Thank you for signing up forThe Nations weekly newsletter.

To prepare for writing about Jordan Peterson, I asked numerous people I know what they thought of him. They all gave the same answer: Who?

Friends, where have you been? Petersons 2018 book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, sold 5 million copies and has been slated for translation into 50 languages. His YouTube channel has 3.68 million subscribers.

According to the man himself, he is so famous that a waiter recognized him in a restaurant and thanked him for changing his life, which cannot be said, Im guessing, for any other clinical psychologist in the world, or possibly any other Canadian.

This is quite an achievement for one whose work is crammed with references to Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, the Bible, ancient Mesopotamian deities, Jesus, and Jung, and which, under a lot of sexist, conservative, mythological/biblical/evolutionary-animal-behavior folderol, basically tells men to grow up and grow a pair. Work hard, be responsible, demand more of yourself, make your bed. Peterson dragged that simple message out for 370 pages of unbelievably clotted, dreary prose, proving once again that your creative-writing teachers were wrong: Nobody cares about the quality of the writing if the message is what the reader wants to hear. Apparently there are a lot of men (most of his fans are men) who want to be told exactly how to stop making such a mess of their lives (Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back) and also that human beings are a lot like lobsters, programmed for hierarchy and combat. You can buy Hail Lobster T-shirts, pillows, limited-edition neckties, and even smartphone covers on his website. Scientists have said hes got lobsters all wrong, but whatever. I will never feel guilty about eating a lobster roll again.

You might think 12 rules were enoughby Rule 12, Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street, Peterson seemed to be reaching a bit. He obviously didnt think so, because his new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, offers a dozen more and weighs in at 432 pages. Preorders made it reach Amazons Top 10.

Why would so many people want to be hectored by an unpleasant know-it-all whose most recent contribution as a public intellectual was advocating an all-meat diet? The rules are mostly familiar self-help platitudes, which Peterson drags out for dozens of pages each by bringing in everything from his patients and family to ISIS, Osiris, and Tolstoy.

Rule 7: Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens. Rule 10: Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship. Rule 12: Be grateful in spite of your suffering. There are plenty of cats out there for you to pet.Current Issue

Subscribe today and Save up to $129.

There have always been men who want to be told exactly what to do to get what they wantin this case, women. Men, you may have noticed, have had a harder time getting quality girlfriends now that women dont have to marry to survive. They have to make more of an effort to be boyfriend material, let alone husband material, and this is not easy for the ones who think a beautiful, complaisant helpmeet should be handed to them on a platter. At worst, these young men become incels, raging at both feminists and alpha men who corner all the pretty ladies. Peterson shares their pain. Hes said some unwise things about how enforced monogamy would solve the problem, by which he did not mean the government doling out wives, as is sometimes claimed, but restoring social pressures to marry. (Good luck with that.) But he is also their drill sergeant: Clean your room. Be good at your job. Life is tough, but remember Rule 11: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.

Not surprisingly, Peterson takes a dim view of feminism. Basically, he believes all women want to have babiesthey just dont want to have them with a manbaby. This contradictionpatriarchy is good, but men are flubbing itleads him into all kinds of strange places. Famously, he contends that symbolically, men represent order, women chaos. Really? Shouldnt that be the other way around? Who, after all, is cleaning and tidying, cooking, reorganizing the fridge, remembering to pick up the dry cleaning and send out birthday cards and put the parent-teacher conference on the calendarusually while holding down a job as well? Compare the apartments of single men and women in their 20s: Which sex is sleeping on sheets that havent been changed in three months? Maybe men were orderly in the distant past, for example when they served in the Roman armyall that building of forts and organizing of equipment Julius Caesar wrote about, to say nothing of keeping ones armor and weaponry polished and ready for action. But today? Theres a reason why a young man who fails to launch is described as living in Moms basement. Good old Mom. She probably still does his laundry.

I have no doubt that some people have been goaded into self-improvement by Peterson. He is quite right that peoplewomen as well as menneed meaning and purpose in their lives, need to find things they care about and to try their hardest to be good at them. Caught between the belief that they deserve to move forward without having to compete with pesky women, and the fact that the milestones of adulthood, like marriage and parenthood, may be economically out of reach, men can find it hard to resist cheap cynicism. But like it or not, we are social beings, so Rule 1: Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement. Fortunately for the sarcastic among us, carelessly leaves a lot of wiggle room.

When it comes to stern and sober life advice, the best book is still Marcus Aureliuss Meditations, which has been guiding people through the struggles of life for at least a thousand years and is, moreover, well-written and short. Its advice can be summarized as follows. Rule 1: Try as hard as you can to be a good, responsible, serious person. Rule 2: Be aware that much of life is out of your control. Rule 3: In any case, soon you will be dead.

Read the original:

Jordan Peterson's New Rules Are Old News - The Nation

Jordan Peterson has alienated loads of his fans by announcing that he is getting the coronavirus vaccine.

Writing on Twitter, the controversial professor told his followers he didnt have enough antibodies to prevent reinfection, necessitating a good old dose of the vaccine. He said:

But people were unimpressed with his attempt to not get ill and, commenting on his post, many expressed their distress that their hero had fallen victim to logic groupthink:

That Petersons fans hold opinions such as those above is perhaps unsurprising. The psychologist has garnered controversy for comparing trans activists with Chairman Mao, arguing that men have protected women throughout history rather than oppressed them, and advocating enforced monogamy, among other lovely ideas.

While he has never expressed mistrust in vaccinations or claimed that coronavirus is not real, his politics are part of a right-wing political playbook that often involves anti-vax views.

And so, his fans wiped their tears using pages ripped from Petersons bible 12 Rules For Life:

Peterson has not responded to any of his critics, so whether the backlash has quelled his desire to not be infected with coronavirus remains to be seen, although somehow we doubt it.

We look forward to hearing Peterson announce the 13th rule for life though, get the coronavirus vaccine.

Continue reading here:

Jordan Peterson said hes getting a Covid vaccine and anti-vax fans are furious - indy100

12 Rules For Life Series, Essay One

This article was previously published on Medium.

Ive been an avid reader and student of philosophy, psychology and other related topics since my early teens.

My uncle first influenced and introduced me to thinkers like Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Plato and Socrates, and as I grew older, I discovered many others.

Some helped me understand the world and human beings better (Robbins, Taleb, Bruce Lee, Watts, Clare Graves, Frankl, Sowell, Rand, Hoppe, Rothbard, etc.), while others helped reinforce the formers ideas by either consistently contradicting themselves, introducing ridiculous ideas of their own or just regurgitating things others have said but completely out of context, thus exhibiting no understanding at all. Some examples include the likes of Marx, Sam Harris, Derrida, Harari, Piketty, Kelton and Keynes.

Either way, they all helped me sharpen and hone my own viewpoints, so for that, Im thankful even for the dumb texts Ive read.

In the last five years, Ive come to really enjoy and align with the philosophies of a particular individual, whom by now youve surely guessed is Jordan Peterson.

While I believe the most profound modern philosopher is likely Murray Rothbard, I believe Peterson is the most articulate and, for me, (personally) one of the most authentic and courageous people alive today.

So today as an homage to Jordans work, and as an attempt to introduce him and his audience to Bitcoin, Ive decided to write a series of articles that examine Bitcoin through a Jordan B. Peterson lens.

Im going to use his most popular book, 12 Rules For Life as the framework. While Ill follow the structure of the book because each of the chapters is quite dense, I will look to glean a number of lessons along the way with my interpretation of the essence of each.

I hope you find value in this series of essays, and if youre a Bitcoiner who has friends that youve not yet been able to orange pill, but are aligned with Jordans ideas and philosophy, I hope this becomes a useful resource.

Jordans first rule in the book is stand up straight, with your shoulders back.

He explores how the individuals position in the social hierarchy impacts their hormonal (serotonin) and dopaminergic systems, and vice versa, hence making it a feedback loop.

More importantly, though, the essence of the lesson is how by owning oneself and taking responsibility (standing up straight), you can influence these systems to either cease a downward spiral or commence an upward journey in life.

The part of our brain that keeps track of our position in the dominance hierarchy is therefore exceptionally ancient and fundamental.

It is a master control system, modulating our perceptions, values, emotions, thoughts and actions. It powerfully affects every aspect of our Being, conscious and unconscious alike.

- Peterson, 12 Rules For Life

This chapter is extraordinarily dense, with so much to unpack and relate to Bitcoin. It was hard for me to choose a single angle, so Ive explored multiple sections and how they each relate; socially, evolutionarily, economically and psychologically.

Note: I will use the words territory and private property interchangeably.

We live in a world with finite territory, and much like any other species, including the now-famous lobsters, our ability to subsist relies on how well we select, protect and handle our territory (aka; private property in a more anthropomorphic sense).

Territory matters. A few truths we must come to terms with are:

Humanity has, over the millennia, developed methods of protecting territory because it is fundamental to our survival as a species. We are collaborative by nature, and the means through which we collaborate is the exchange of private property. This private property (or territory) starts with you and extends to anything you mix your time and energy with on a voluntary basis without having taken it by force from another, although the latter does (and has) happened throughout history, hence the critical need for defence.

Examples of mechanisms for defence include anything from:

Whats important to note here is that without a mechanism for the protection of private property, society collapses. We are all individuals, who are inherently diverse and value everything subjectively. We cannot all own a portion of each other, nor own a part of everything. Its a physical and social impossibility.

Territory is not a social construct. Its a biological imperative.

Its the mechanism thats evolved through which nature achieves balance and equilibrium. Its an emergent, bottom-up phenomenon, not a top-down decree like pseudo scientists would have you believe.

Petersons overview on territory is brilliant, but I would recommend the incredible work by Robert Ardrey (The Territorial Imperative), or you can wait for a piece Ill be writing in the future entitled: Private Property As A Biological Imperative, in which Ill dig deeper into the above.

So if territory and private property are central to existence, then how do we value, order and select it, knowing that we are all subjective beings and that all property is scarce?

Pecking orders are natural phenomena, and found across all living systems. Hierarchies have to develop because life cannot exist without some form of selection, and this cannot exist without prioritization.

This is not to say that there is one right way. Life is not so simplistic. We exist in a complex world where hierarchies and methods for prioritization emerge across multiple dimensions (remember the subjective nature of humans and what they value).

In other words, hierarchies will always form, so the question is not whether they should exist or not (thats like arguing about the existence of gravity), but in what form are hierarchies most conducive to life?

As with most things, its a spectrum.

On one side, we have hierarchies by fiat. These are unnatural and abhorrent. They exist by decree and because there is little to no skin in the game for some, they form at the expense and the exclusion of many.

On the other hand, we have those which are natural and emergent. These are best classified as hierarchies of competence. They are ergodic and dynamic by nature because participants have skin in the game.

Then, of course, we have everything in between. Reality is such that things are messy, and the extremes are rare.

If modernity has shown us anything, its that institutions that may have initially arisen due to competence and a desire for order, but cemented themselves by fiat and thus have become monopolies, will not only begin to decay, but as described by the cobra effect, they will pose a greater danger to existence than the original chaos they set out to manage.

The most prone to such degeneration (enhanced and accelerated by the moral hazard of having no skin in the game) are state monopolies on money, violence, morality and ethics (i.e., law). Why?

Because they are the levers of society. Theyre the glue which binds us. And because of this, they seem to incentivize two key reactions:

This edifice becomes more dangerous and fragile the larger it grows, and like the proverbial beast that must continually be fed, it continues to consume all in its path until it starves and collapses.

All hierarchies are dynamic, and even natural hierarchies tend to adjust, evolve, deconstruct and re-emerge, but fiat hierarchies, in particular, are prone to catastrophic collapse because, through monopolization and the incessant need to control and manage, they deviate further from natural order and become increasingly fragile.

I wrote about fiat versus natural authority at greater length here:

Resistance Is NOT Futile (1/2)

Inequality is one of the most pushed subjects today and one which is deeply misunderstood.

Many who know my work will know my position on inequality. I believe there is nothing more natural than inequality, and in fact, it is the basis of all diversity, nuance and life itself.

Nature is perfect in its imperfection and the result is a naturally unequal distribution of everything from skills, to values, to likes, dislikes, shapes, sizes, interests, resources, effort and everything else one can perceive.

The only thing that should be equal in the world is equality in probability. This means the game were all playing remains dynamic, because we all have skin in the game.

This is by and large how hierarchies naturally emerge, grow, correct and persist, unless of course there is a mechanism via which those at the top can remove their skin from the game, and thus remove the natural equality in probability inherent to stable, emergent systems (after which they decay and collapse).

People are not really angry about inequality, but unfairness. When the opportunity to move up exists and the risk to fall remains, the game is fair and the results are dynamic. If not, the game is rigged.

Read more here:

Utopian Dystopias

And here.

The Pareto principle is a perfectly natural power law distribution most commonly known as the 80/20 rule and best documented by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes.

You know this not only in your own life (i.e., a smaller number of the things you do produce most of the results), but can see it all around the world and can even deduce it using some simple logic.

You know full well that a few of the songs by a band are their best. That a few players in any sport are disproportionately more impactful than the rest. That a few actors produce most of the hits. That a few hard and smart employees at work produce most of the output.

At a macro level, this manifests itself as uneven Pareto-type wealth distribution.

Think of the following example:

Two people start out working. One does the average nine to five, while the other decides to work two jobs, and save every penny of the second.

As they progress, the saver builds up a small capital base which he decides to use as his investment capital. The other person just continues working the nine to five and hangs out with friends afterwards.

Fast forward a few years, and the saver managed to grow his total wealth through some intelligent investments. He now has a greater capital base from which to invest and further compound that wealth, i.e., earning 5% a few years ago on a $1,000 investment may have yielded $50, but now that same 5% yields $500 per month because hes got $10,000 invested (for example).

Their proportionate wealth will start to look very much like an 80/20 distribution.

Now heres the beautiful part.

The saver, turned investor, gets addicted to his strategy and gets super greedy in the process, so he decides to take some silly risks to yield 50% on investment. He puts up a large chunk of his capital for it and then loses it because he was wrong about his investment.

Hes now back to square one and needs to practically start all over again.

This is the dynamic nature of life and how excessive risk can (and does) lead to natural rebalancing in any system.

Now lets look at the situation in an alternate universe. Saver never gets greedy but gets extremely risk averse. Instead of investing any more of his capital, he just decides to put it all where its safe and he no longer cares about growth.

In this scenario, the original spender who has seen his friend get ahead decides that he wants to catch up. Well, he begins to work harder, save and put those savings toward investments or activities that can yield a higher return. Hes got less to lose, hes younger and, as such, is willing to take more risk.

Over time, he begins to catch up because the original saver is content where he is.

Once again, the system rebalances. All distribution is dynamic and can either compound or erode. It does not standstill. There is no such thing as a static system. Thats exactly why equality can never exist. Its a static, imaginary, utopian (dystopian) dead state.

Inequality, Prices law and the Pareto distribution are all perfectly normal.

Unfairness is the real problem. When the game is rigged, people get pissed off.

Unfortunately, via the monopolization of violence, ethics, morality and most importantly, the production of the most important human technology (money), the state has managed to rig the game.

On a short enough timescale (which is long by individual standards), they are no longer subject to the downside. Neither are any of the organizations, institutions and representatives that can get close to any of the key monopolies of the state.

The result is unnatural distributions, and instead of the system re-balancing via natural correction, we get these 99/1 or even 99.9/01 type distributions of wealth.

Why?

Because: heads they win, tails you lose.

Its like playing a game of monopoly with one person keeping their hand in the box of money, so they cant lose. Or better yet, playing a game of poker where the initial leader of the game knows the dealer, makes a deal, and as such, any time he loses on the river, he gets bailed out from the chips that are in every other players stack.

If thats how the game is played, the rest of the players will soon leave. And thats exactly whats happening now, with Bitcoin.

Poker is actually a great analogy because it incorporates not only skill but luck. Prudent early play can get you ahead. You have to take risks sometimes, you have to bluff, sometimes youll have to fold. If you play well, you can amass enough chips to begin to play harder and more rough, but, the chance to lose it all always exists, and thus, keeps the game fair.

Modernity is a rigged poker game and Bitcoin fixes it by tearing money out of the hands of any one player and thus reintroducing skin in the game for all.

Changing tack a little here is the evolutionary idea of fitness and selection.

As Jordan writes:

The idea of selects contains implicitly nested within it the idea of fitness.

It is fitness that is selected.

The fit in fitness is the matching of organismal attributes to environmental demand.

Fitness is that which is ever more accurately approximated across time, and its important to note that its neither a linear process nor one that is always trending toward more fitness.

Its like a dance. There is a direction across time, but much like two dancers, it moves, sways and swings as it hones and adapts toward ever more fitness.

Bitcoins proof-of-work network is much the same. The difficulty adjustment, incentive mechanism and the work required to participate make Bitcoin an organism that one can argue are alive.

Brilliant minds like Gigis have done this topic far more justice than I can here, so I suggest a review of the following:

Proof Of Life

Furthermore, there is the natural selection process we as individuals make in our pursuit of economic survival. Ive called it Economic Darwinism and its related to Greshams law (i.e., good money pushes out bad money).

We select the money that best performs the three key functions of money:

Making the wrong selection relegates us to poverty and diminishes our capacity to cooperate, collaborate and interact with the rest of society.

As such, we are incentivized to converge and select the fittest mechanism via which the product of our labor can be stored, exchanged and measured.

This fittest medium is unequivocally Bitcoin, and the self-reinforcing, convergent nature of the network effect of money will only continue to accelerate this realization as it spreads globally.

This then brings me to the idea of:

Status is the metaphysical relationship between us and the rest of the world.

Its our relationship to not only the dynamic distribution of all the resources, wealth, skills, shapes, sizes, etc., in the world, but our position in the multitude of hierarchies across every dimension and category one comes into contact with.

This is where the rubber meets the road and why our systems are hormonally, neurologically and biologically wired the way they are.

View post:

Bitcoin, Hierarchy And Territory - Bitcoin Magazine

In case you missed it, last week a famous horse trainer blamed his animals drug violation on cancel culture.

This would be Bob Baffert. I have lost a fair amount of money betting against Bafferts horses. Hes really good. And theres no question he wants to clean up his act. In fact, heres what he said.

We can always do better and that is my goal. Given what has transpired this year, I intend to do everything possible to ensure I receive no further medication complaints.

Sign up to get Colins newsletter delivered to your inbox, for free

The problem is that he said this last November after four bad drug tests in one of his barns over a stretch of six months. And then, despite his promise to do everything possible, his Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit tested positive for a regulated agent called betamethasone.

Bafferts career is dotted with medication violations, at least 30 of them.

So he went on Fox News where else? and said, We live in a different world now. This America is different. It was like a cancel culture kind of a thing so theyre reviewing it."

Youve got to think that Lance Armstrong, Pete Rose, Lance Armstrong, Mark McGwire and a host of others are kicking themselves now. They could have blamed cancel culture when they were caught cheating. (Hopefully, Medina Spirit isnt kicking himself. That seems dangerous.)

And poor Tonya Harding. They so canceled her.

Look, to the extent that cancel culture is a thing, Im often not a big fan of it. But we need a definition.

Lets start with what it is not. Cancel culture is not about ostracizing people whose proven misdeeds would have gotten them kicked to the curb in any era. We didnt need cancel culture to deal with Harvey Weinstein. The existing norms of Western civilization are sufficient.

Cancel culture is about something more subtle. What if somebody said or wrote or as is so often the case tweeted something unpalatable?

In 2014, Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings tweeted nothing sadder than a hot person in a wheelchair. He has apologized for that and other offensive tweets, but, yes, you have to wonder what sort of (answer-filled) mind thinks something like that is not horrible, right out of the gate? And now Jennings is under consideration to be the host of his favorite game show.

Cancel culture would dictate that Jennings be essentially erased from culture. He doesnt get the new job. Nobody books him for college lectures. Nobody interviews him about anything. He doesnt get to come back for tournaments of champions.

Most of that stuff is not going to happen. Theres some kind of ineffable ratio that pits how big a deal you are against the severity of your offense. Jennings isnt exactly a supernova, but hes probably too big to cancel over some admittedly creepy tweets.

The same goes for J.K. Rowling, who cant seem to shut up about transpersons. Her tweets have been very offensive to the LGBT community, although it might be unrealistic to expect sound social policy thinking from someone who also gets drawn into protracted arguments about whether wizards use toilets. (Rowlings recent ruling was that for centuries, wizards used magic to make their poop and pee disappear but that recently theyve been stepping up to the porcelain. Im not making this up.)

However, by some metrics, Rowling is the most successful literary writer of all time. Too big to cancel. She would have to do something much more horrible, like deny the reality of COVID and write a thinly veiled antisemitic rant.

Wait. Singer Van Morrison did both of those things recently, and he probably wont be canceled. Morrison has been a hate-filled crackpot crying out against reasonable pandemic restrictions for the past year, and his recent song They Own the Media recycles toxic tropes historically directed at Jews.

He would be difficult to cancel. Too many people, including me, love too many of his songs. Its almost as if certain people have tenure.

The wolves of cancel culture rarely bring down the biggest, strongest, healthiest caribou (or horse). You have to be a little less famous. You have to be working for a liberal arts college or a publication that values its status among a certain kind of left-oriented consumer.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an opinion piece marveling at the way Jordan Peterson a notorious Canadian right-wing culture warrior has escaped cancellation. This is absurd. The people who run cancel culture have always hated Jordan Peterson. You cant lose standing you never had.

The sad part of cancel culture is the way it picks off less famous people of value. The New York Times and Slate, respectively, recently brought the cancel cudgel down on journalists Donald McNeil Jr. and Mike Pesca over the n-word not because they called anybody the n-word or used the n-word in print but because they, as far as I can tell, engaged in discussions about the use of the word in which they either cited it or argued that there might be occasions where the word itself should be spelled out instead of attenuated.

I get that. Way back in the 90s, there was a tendency to use n-word for the slur repeatedly uttered by Mark Fuhrman, an L.A. cop investigating the Simpson-Goldman murders. I always thought the biggest beneficiary of that policy was Fuhrman.

McNeil was terrific at his job. I know and like Pesca, whom I consider valuable partly because hes so committed to hashing things out rather than reflexively saluting the flag everybody else around him salutes.

The problem with canceling people like them is that the rest of us dont get a vote. If 10,000 of us said these guys were way too valuable to cancel because of a side issue that involved no apparent malign intentions, it wouldnt matter. Weve lost them and their work over a set of rules that arent even written down anywhere.

And Van Morrison just keeps chugging along. (To be fair, Pesca is a really, really terrible singer.)

We need to have a very real, nuanced conversation about how to improve public discourse without washing out valuable voices. That conversation does not involve doped-up horses.

Colin McEnroes column appears every Sunday, his newsletter comes out every Thursday and you can hear his radio show every weekday on WNPR 90.5. Email him at colin@ctpublic.org. Sign up for his newsletter at http://bit.ly/colinmcenroe.

Read more from the original source:

Colin McEnroe (opinion): Is it really 'cancel culture,' or just cheating? - The Advocate

Photo by PAUL ELLIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Martin Keown is wondering whether Jurgen Klopp engaged in some clever man-management by dropping Sadio Mane for Liverpools 4-2 win at Manchester United last night, speaking totalkSPORT(14 May, 10.20am).

Were used to seeing the Liverpool gaffer embrace his players in the warmest of bear hugs after a victory like that.

Sowhen Mane ignored Klopps handshake and stormed off the Old Trafford pitch, shaking his head as he went, you didnt need Jordan Peterson to tell you something wasnt quite right in the Anfield camp.

YouTube

1884

Why Are English Football Managers So Bad?

a4byJzgNwkg

a4byJzgNwkg

center

UCi9SqUCnW_flgsrl6_PRJFQ

HITC Sevens (Youtube)

https://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AAUvwnh2dj4adpLKjpkVHNyIhe_Ao5FOuSlZirlnc9GR=s800-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj

13872

Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, Klopp suggested Mane had been infuriated by his sudden decision to drop the struggling Senegal international in favour of Diogo Jota.

Klopp admitted he failed to tell Mane he wouldnt be starting a crunch Premier League fixture until just before kick-off.

But, according to Arsenal legend Keown, the Liverpool manager may be using a psychological trick to deliver a proverbial boot up the backside to a player who, in his own words, is enduring the worst season of my career.

Keown mused: For Mane, it was like: I dont want to show that everything is alright publicly because it isnt. You didnt have the respect to speak to me (and tell me Id been dropped).

Maybe it might help the player be a bitmore angry, to give a bit more in his performance. It might have been clever from the manager because hes normally brilliant at that sort of thing.

I always thought it was nice, respectful, to hear from the manager whytheyre going to leave you out of the team rather than just naming the side. It was definitely against what Klopp normally does.

If you overindulge the players and then you change, thats how you get a reaction.

Jurgen Klopp is trying to get something from the player. (Mane) has been disappointing. He said himself hes had a disastrous season so you want to see some sort of reaction on the pitch and thats what youll see until the end of the season.

Klopps decision certainly looks like the right one with the benefit of hindsight. The incoming Jota cancelled out Bruno Fernandes opener with an impudent backheel, all the while causing Uniteds shaky back line no end of problems with his exceptional movement in the final third.

Mane, in contrast, squandered one glorious opportunity when he finally came off the bench with 16 minutes remaining.

In other news, 'Everything was agreed': Halliday names Spurs player he spotted at Rangers base

Originally posted here:

Clever: Martin Keown has interesting theory about Sadio Mane handshake drama - HITC

The war on woke is on, and if yesterdays feedback and reaction to having Chloe Swarbrick on the show is anything to go by, therere clearly a lot of people fed up with what they call fairy dust ideology.

As it turns out, I dont disagree with Chloes stance on alcohol advertising, especially the relationship between alcohol and sport sponsorship, but I dont think a blanket ban solves anything. Likewise, banning freedom of speech doesnt solve anything.

So I support her right to express her view, which is more than a lot of her left leaning crowd are prepared to tolerate.

Shutting people down, cancel culture, be woke or go broke seems to be the messaging for corporates, for schools, universities, workplaces, you name it. Find me the business that actually expresses a solid view that isnt woke these days.

I raise all this because of whats now happening in Britain.

In the Queens speech yesterday, on behalf of Boris, the Queen announced a new rule under free speech law which will see any campus which cancels a speaker fined five hundred thousand pounds. Thats a million dollar fine in our money.

Universities in England and Wales have been dogged by no-platforming campaigns and bids to block well known speakers.

Everyone from Germaine Greer to Jordan Peterson have been cancelled by student unions, angry that their views are either racist or sexist or transphobic or homophobic. If your views didn't align with the student unions, then you were cancelled. There were at least a hundred cases of it happening in the past year speakers hired, then fired.

So this new law is an attempt to promote the importance of freedom of speech, and academic freedom, something getting sadly lost these days. God forbid we have a divergence of views on anything, God forbid students learn to think for themselves.

Student unions have of course blasted the bill, they hate it, but it makes me wonder whether this kind of bill would ever get any traction here?

I think in our current climate, no, it wouldnt.

One, no one would have the balls to raise it in the first place, and two, the amount of outrage, fury, and backlash would be so intense theyd probably wonder why they bothered.

Because railing against the tide of the times is hard work, its not popular, just ask anyone on any social media site who expresses an opinion. I know people whove been blocked from their friends Facebook pages for saying they didnt trust the government for goodness sake.

So cancel culture is not only rife, its spreading at pace, and has crept into personal relationships as well as professional ones.

So where does it all end? Do we literally have to legislate our way out of it? Or will common sense return all by itself?

I do believe culture is cyclical, so I like to think well come out of it at some point, the big question I guess is, when?

Read the original here:

Kate Hawkesby: Cancelling Cancel Culture - Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby - Newstalk ZB

The coronavirus pandemic prevented Lone Peak from defending its 6A boys state tennis championship last year. However, TJ Wells didnt waste the time.

Wells was the No. 3 singles champ as a freshman in 2018 and followed it by earning the No. 1 title the following year. When the pandemic forced the Alpine School District to move its students to online learning last year, and then the Utah High School Activities Association canceled the state tournament, Wells took his computer, tennis racquets, sneakers and a few other items to Newport Beach, Calif.

When he wasnt in class, he was testing himself against the Southern California competition.

It seems to have paid dividends. Wells finished 9-1 during the season, earned the top seed in powerful Region 4, and sailed through Thursdays first-round action at Liberty Park in Salt Lake City on the warm, sunny afternoon. The Knights won all of their matches, but still dont have the outcome clinched because region foe American Fork did the same thing.

When the tourney continues in near-perfect weather conditions that are predicted for Saturday, the Knights and Cavemen will have 10 points, and a slight lead over another Region 4 team: Corner Canyon (8). Bingham and Riverton earned 6 points, followed by Syracuse (3), and then Jordan, Pleasant Grove and Weber (2).

Region 4s talent showcase was not a surprise. However, Wests Eric Lu, Skyridges Brock Golding and McGwire Rowland, Webers Tyler Chambers and Corner Canyons Tristan Buckner-Munteanu surprised their opponents with first-round victories despite higher seeds. Charlie Jenkins and Connor Snow of Corner Canyon, and Pleasant Groves Adam Ellis and Kade Purser, and Ty Fergeson and Jeffrey Turner of Fremont did the same in doubles play.

Wells, Abe Robbins and Griffin Karas, a highly touted freshman, each handily won their first and second-round singles matches for the Knights, but were matched by American Forks Caden Hasler, Carson McBeth and Adam Clarke.

Each schools doubles teams were just as dominant, making it pretty clear that the team title will depend on the outcome of the Lone Peak-American Fork matches. Only the Karras-Clarke match is scheduled for the semifinals, and the winner will have to try to avoid a letdown against the winner of the match between Corner Canyons Spencer Willes and Jay Taggart of Syracuse.

Wells said he was looking forward to finishing the year against Hasler.

We have played each other a lot and know each other well, he said. Its great knowing you have to get through the best competition (to win it all).

6A boys state tennis tournament

At Liberty Park, Salt Lake City

Thursdays results

Team scores: 1. American Fork, Lone Peak, 10; 3. Corner Canyon, 8; 4. Bingham, Riverton, 6; 6. Skyridge, 4; 7. Syracuse, 3; 8. Jordan, Pleasant Grove, Weber, 2; 11. Davis, Fremont, Granger, Herriman, Layton, Taylorsville, West, 1.

Individual results

No. 1 singles

First round: Caden Hasler (American Fork) def. Ian Tucker (Cyprus) 6-0, 6-0. Eric Liu (West) def. Walker Kemp (Layton) 6-2, 6-4. Josh Peterson (Bingham) def. Mason Brophy (Syracuse) 6-0, 6-0. Tristan Buckner-Munteanu (Corner Canyon) def. Isaac McDougal (West Jordan) 6-0, 6-2. Charlie Buxton (Jordan) def. Joseph Jones (Northridge) 6-0, 6-0. TJ Wells (Lone Peak) def. Jordan Chugg (Fremont) 6-0, 6-0. Brock Golding (Skyridge) def. Brandon Khoune (Taylorsville) 6-4, 6-2. Cody Burke (Riverton) def. McKay Renstrom (Davis) 6-1, 6-0.

Second round: Hasler def Lu 6-0, 6-0. Peterson def Buckner-Munteanu 7-6 (0), 6-2. Wells def Buxton 6-1, 6-2, Burke def. Golding 6-1, 7-5.

No. 2 singles

First round: Carson McBeth (American Fork) def. Christian Andrewsen (Riverton) 6-0, 6-2. McGwire Rowland (Skyridge) def. Ryan Hicks (Layton) 6-3, 6-3. Kyler Silim (Taylorsville) def. Joseph Kurtz (Weber) 6-2, 6-2. Aidan Rideout (Corner Canyon) def. Noah Jones (Jordan) 6-0, 6-1. Justin Levet (Granger) def. Peyton Perkins (Fremont) 6-0, 6-3. Abe Robbins (Lone Peak) def Fabricio Perez (Cyprus) 6-0, 6-0. Kingsley Hoang (Bingham) def. Wyatt Marriott (Clearfield) 6-1, 6-0. Jordan Fong (Syracuse) def. AJ Brakey (West Jordan) 6-0, 6-2.

Second round: McBeth def. Rowland 6-2, 6-1. Rideout def Silim 6-0, 6-1. Robbins def. Levet 6-0, 6-0, Hogan def. Fong 6-3, 6-3.

No. 3 singles

First round: Parker Cummings (Herriman) def. Eduardo De La Paz (Cyprus) 6-1, 6-0. Spencer Willes (Corner Canyon) def. Boston McFarland (Fremont) 6-0, 6-2. Jay Taggart (Syracuse) def. Jacob Duran (West) 6-0, 6-4. Dane Lallis (Riverton) def. Tyler Khopha (Granger) 6-0, 6-2. Adam Clarke (American Fork) def. Kaden Wright (Davis) 6-2, 6-0. Tyler Chambers (Weber) def. Jaiden Womack (Taylorsville) 6-1, 6-0. Dannion Nelson (Bingham) def. Matt Thompson (West Jordan) 6-1, 6-0. Griffin Karras (Lone Peak) def Ben Ortiz (Layton) 6-0, 6-1.

Second round: Willes def. Cummings 6-0, 6-0. Taggart def. Lallis 6-1, 6-2. Clarke def. Chambers 6-1, 6-0. Karras def. Nelson 6-1, 6-2.

No. 1 doubles

First round: Cole Jenkins-Beau Welker (Corner Canyon) def. Brandon Nguyen-Winston Tran (Granger) 6-0, 6-0. Brayden Groll-Spencer Groll (Davis) def. Noah Malloy-Ashton Phelps (Herriman) 6-3, 6-0. Josh Christensen-Isaac Jewkes (Bingham) def. Davis Garlitz-Baden Record (Layton) 6-3, 6-1. Derek Larson-Luke Rich (American Fork) def. Briar Beddow-Joseph Fausett (Kearns) 6-0, 6-0. Adam Ellis-Kade Purser (Pleasant Grove) def. Reed Miles-Brandon Schlappi (Taylorsville) 6-2, 6-0. Cambell Etulain-Dan Colt (Jordan) def. Josh Waldrip-Kaden Banks (Weber) 6-0, 6-3.

Second round: Jenkins-Welker def. Groll-Groll 6-0, 6-0. Larson-Rich def. Christensen-Jewkes 6-1, 7-5. Ashton-Blodgett def. Gowen-Seegmiller 6-0, 6-1. Ellis-Purser def. Etulain-Colt 6-3, 6-2.

No. 2 doubles

First round: Sam Jensen-Treson Hucks (American Fork) def. Tucker Daynes-Sam McCoy (Bingham) 6-2, 6-3. Charlie Jenkins-Connor Snow (Corner Canyon) def. Jack Sargent-Will Parkinson (Davis) 6-3, 6-4. Ty Fergeson-Jeffrey Turner (Fremont) def. Michael Griffith-Simeon Thomas (Granger) 6-3, 6-0. Logan Pickle-Max Ericksen (Skyridge) def. Jackson Osborne-John Seo (Jordan) 6-0, 6-4. Bridger Hunt-Kayden Smith (Layton) def. Tate Seaman-Landon Muir (Taylorsville) 6-4, 6-0. Lucas Jackson-Isaac Downs (Lone Peak) def. Braydon Seeley-Damon Armenta (Cyprus) 6-1, 6-0. Christian Driggs-Drew Blackwell (Riverton) def. Kayden Wageman-Devin Dennis (Clearfield) 6-3, 6-2. Isaac Peterson-Caden Meyer (Weber) def. Joel Myers-Dylan Richardson (Kearns) 6-0, 6-0.

Second round: Jensen-Hucks def. Jenkins-Snow 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Pickle-Ericksen def. Fergeson-Turner 6-1, 6-2. Jackson-Downs def. Hunt-Smith 6-0, 6-0. Driggs-Blackwell def. Peterson-Meyer 6-1, 6-1.

Visit link:

High school boys tennis: Lone Peak, American Fork win all their matches on first day of 6A tournament - Deseret News