Category Archives: Jordan Peterson

Let me start with a brief story about a nearly lost man and the simple thing that saved him. Three years ago I was on the road for work, and I was picked up at the airport by a young guy who looked like a vet. We had a ninety-minute trip to the speaking venue, and so we struck up a conversation. I asked him if he served. He said yes. I asked him if he deployed. He said yes, to Afghanistan. I asked how he was fitting in after he came back home.

He got quiet for a moment. He said, Have you heard of Jordan Peterson? I said yes, absolutely. In fact, Id just reviewed his book for National Review. Well, Jordan Peterson saved my life.

How? The story begins the way a lot of veterans stories begin. After he came back from war, he felt lost. He had no purpose. In a flash hed gone from an existence where every day mattered and every day had a mission to a world that seemed empty and aimless by comparison. To put it in the words of a cavalry officer I served with in Iraq, I wonder if Ive done the most significant thing Ill ever do by the time Im 25 years old.

The young man I was talking to had no mission. He also had no mentor. He picked up the bottle so much that he couldnt put it down. Eventually he had suicidal thoughts. How did Jordan Peterson bring him back? He told him to clean up his room. Yep, clean up his room. He told him to get organized. He told him to stop saying things that arent true.

It all sounds so simple, so basic. Dont we need transcendent truths to turn our lives around? Well, yes. But sometimes the process starts with direction and with discipline. Especially for young men. The small disciplines led to larger disciplines. Small purpose led to bigger purpose. And there was my new friendworking hard, in a relationship, and saving for a down payment on a house.

No wonder he was choked up with gratitude.

Why bring up that story? Because of one of the most remarkable podcasts Ive ever heard. Its by Mike Cosper at Christianity Today, and it chronicles the rise and fall of Mars Hill church in Seattle and the corresponding rise and fall of its celebrity pastor, Mark Driscoll. The thing thats remarkable about the podcast is that it spends as much time describing what worked about Mars Hillwhy Driscoll and his church became a sensationas it does describing why it failed.

And we cant start talking about either what worked or what failed without talking about young men like the driver in the story above. Driscoll, you see, was a Jordan Peterson figure before Jordan Peterson. He was a Christian celebrity pastor who understood that many millions of young men were lost. He aimed his ministry straight at them, provided them with a unique version of a boot camp Christian experience (hed sometimes browbeat the men in his congregation for hours at a time), but then ultimately burned up his credibility in the bonfire of his own arrogance.

Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill in 2014, under fire for his harsh, domineering leadership and almost a year after Driscoll apologized for mistakes following plagiarism allegations. Mars Hill Church dissolved shortly thereafter.

Its a story worth remembering, because young men are still struggling with modern masculinity, the church is still struggling to reach them, and Driscolls story is one part guide and one part cautionary tale.

I use the word guide advisedly, with full knowledge of Driscolls deep flaws. But he did see something. He did understand that young men were flailing. Theyre still flailing. Heres how I phrased their predicament in my review of Petersons book:

Theyre deeply suspicious of organized religion, yet they cant escape the nagging need for transcendence in their lives. They want answers to great questions, but theyre suspicious of authority. They want purpose, but they dont know what purpose means apart from careerism. Oh, and all but the most politically correct are keenly aware that mankind is fallen, that men and women are different, and that, while the post-Christian West has allegedly killed God, it cant seem to replace him with anything better.

This is the landscape of spiraling rates of anxiety and depression, of extended adolescence, and of a generation of young men whove been told that masculinity is toxic but not taught how to live in a way that recognizes or even cares to comprehend their true nature.

Driscoll stepped into this void with key insightsthat men need male mentors (thats one of the reasons why boys often respond worse than girls to absent fathers), that men often react quite well to direct and confrontational challenges to their manhood, and that men shouldnt be ashamed that they are strong and often full of competitive fire.

So when Driscoll walked into Seattle life and directly challenged men to get a job, to stop watching porn, to stop sleeping around, and to start supporting a family, It worked for much the same reason the Peterson message resonated a decade later. He gave men a sense of virtuous masculine purpose. Shape up. Protect and provide.

In fact, I joined legions of other Christians in appreciating Driscolls message to men. I excused and rationalized some of his excesses, believing he was doing good work challenging men to lead better, more responsible lives.

(I fully recognize, by the way, men are not all the same. They dont all respond to the same kinds of appeals. The Driscoll blunt approach can repel as well as attract. But it attracted hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of young Christian men as Driscolls star kept rising.)

But Driscoll ultimately failed. My appreciation was ultimately mistaken, and Ive tried to learn from my own failure of judgment. Even worse, Driscoll didnt just fail as an individual, the way so many celebrity pastors fail; his philosophy and approach failed the men and the women in his church. It caused great harm. And its worth exploring briefly whybecause the why also applies to multiple modern Christian efforts to reach young men.

One of the core reasons for the Driscoll failure (and for other failures before or since) is that he met a cultural overreaction with an overreaction all his own. He opposed a specific secular extremism with a Christian extremism that ultimately proved his critics correct.

Ive written a considerable amount about the secular war against so-called toxic masculinity, and while I recognize that toxic masculinity does exist, its definition often sweeps way too broadly. As I wrote in one of my first Sunday French Press essays, the American Psychological Associations 2019 declaration that traditional masculinitymarked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggressionis, on the whole, harmful represented a formal manifestation of a misguided cultural trend.

Look at the list of characteristics above. Aside from dominance, the characteristics above can be vices or virtues depending on the context. Stoicism can be harmful, yes, but (as Ive argued before) it can be indispensable to helping a man navigate the storms of life with a calm, steady hand.

Aggression seems like a vice, right up until the moment when you need a good man to stop an evil man in his tracks. A competitive spirit can be harmful, but it can also build companies, institutions, and even nations. It can inspire extraordinary innovation.

No, you dont want to jam any person into the masculine stereotype and demand that they exhibit the characteristics above, but when those characteristics are presentand they are in many, many menthe challenge is to channel them into virtue, temper them away from excess, and ultimately subordinate them to the way of the cross.

So whats the Driscoll sin? Whats the common mistake of so many efforts to celebrate Christian masculinity? Its to functionally take the exact opposite approach of the APAinstead of treating these characteristics as inherent vices, the Driscolls of the world turn them into inherent virtues. They glory in aggression, competitiveness, and achievement.

The end result was a theology that conformed Christianity to traditional masculinity rather than conformed masculinity to Christianity. A theology and community that focused on sex differences created a world in which masculinity and male power was central to the identity of the church and the movement.

The most heartbreaking of the podcasts so far was Episode Five, entitled The Things We Do to Women. It discusses how the churchs extreme focus on empowering men and fostering a biblical masculinity resulted in a culture that subordinated women to such a degree that wives were often treated as playthings for their husbandsencouraged to strip for them and perform sex acts that they found deeply uncomfortable and degrading.

But the smoking hot wife was the reward for the godly man, and satisfaction of his insatiable sex drive was his entitlement.

And thus you see the depravity of a thinly Christianized version of true toxic masculinity. What was first a church that challenged men to restrain their vices (Stop sleeping around! Stop watching porn!) ending up indulging men in modified versions of those same vices (You can still have all the sex you want! Your wife is your porn!) At the end of the day, the Driscoll example for young men was dangeroushe sent a message that with daring and discipline, you could become not just a responsible man, but a dominant man.

Thus, perversely enough, Driscoll sanctified a secular version of masculine toughness and virility. The (sometimes necessary) act of grabbing men by their metaphorical lapels and shaking them out of their stupor ultimately pointed them away from the cross and towards the same will to power that has bedeviled mankind since the Fall.

Lets return to the young vet at the start of the essay. Like Driscoll did to young men a decade before, Peterson woke him up. He gave him a sense of immediate purpose. He spoke to a man in the way that so many men understanddirectly, challenging them to do better, to be better. These kinds of direct challenges, whether they come from dads, pastors, authors, coaches, or drill sergeants, can be immensely valuable. Sometimes theyre the only thing that can reach a mans heart.

When you can understand this reality, you can start to see Driscolls appeal. His ministry did change lives. Others like himbefore and sincehave changed lives. And when you change a mans life, you can inspire fierce devotion.

But pastors and leaders must handle that devotion with great care. When countering a culture that often attacks traditional masculine inclinations as inherent vice, the answer isnt to indulge traditional masculine inclinations as inherent virtue.

In fact, in our efforts to define what it means to be a Christian man, we shouldnt center our efforts on masculinity at all, but rather on understanding a persona person who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Driscoll, in all his toughness and swagger, tried to make men out of Christians. The church, however, should make Christians out of men.

One last thing

The Mars Hill podcast also reminded me of this marvelous song by Sandra McCracken. We had the pleasure of hosting her in our home a few years ago, in a setting very much like this. Sandra is talented and a thoughtful, delightful person as well. I hope you enjoy this song as much as we did:

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Why a Masculine Ministry Rose and Fell - by David French - The French Press - The Dispatch

AUGUST 12, 2021

PASTS IMPERFECT IS a new column that explores the impact of ancient pasts on the present. Begun by Sarah E. Bond, Joel Christensen, and Nandini Pandey, Pasts Imperfect is a space for addressing forgotten, manipulated, or misunderstood histories of the ancient world from South America to the Indus Valley and the ancient Mediterranean. We will also highlight how narratives about the past influence the world we live in today, from books and movies to executive orders.

In an interview with The New Yorker in 1965, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke discussed a working title for a screenplay that would eventually become 2001: A Space Odyssey. Called Journey Beyond the Stars, this screenplay about the future had deep roots in mythologies of the past. Kubrick had given Clarke a copy of Joseph Campbells 1949 analysis of mythology, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The journey in their working title was a reference to Campbells book, one which proposed the existence of a singular heros journey (also known as the Monomyth), as experienced by ancient heroes such as Odysseus in Homers Odyssey.

Campbells synthetic, undeniably alluring model presented a hero who reluctantly accepts the call to adventure, using the tribulations of his odyssey to reshape himself into the savior humanity needs before returning home. Campbell claimed his theory, which has gone on to influence everything from Star Wars to Disneys Aladdin, arose from a universal structure inherent in the global myths of antiquity. The problem is, thats a lie. Campbells theory is as mythological as the stories from which it borrows.

Lets go back to 1949 to trace Campbells own origin story.

In the wake of World War II, Campbells Monomyth, a theory about myth and folktales, presented an attractive, simplified narrative pattern as a prescriptive tool to the public with a global spin born in part from Campbells early interest in Native American mythology. Unlike many of his predecessors, he engaged with numerous non-Western sources, shifting some focus from Greece and Rome. Patrice Rankine, a Classicist at the University of Chicago, tells us that Campbells book emerged in the context of the American and British Great Books movement. So, its right in the sweet spot of a Western canon. In this context I actually like Campbell because he elevated non-Western myth. Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and others gained an entry point or foothold through such flattening.

Rankine recognizes that the Monomyth created a more inclusive model, but one which came at the cost of complexity. Most myths with monomythic patterns can be analyzed in different ways for many different functions. To create his hero, Campbell had to depend upon the fallacy of incomplete evidence otherwise known as cherry-picking.

These sins of contextual omission allowed Campbell to weave an attractive narrative that found particular favor with his white midcentury audience. Echoing the ethical egoism of Ayn Rands The Fountainhead, published only a few years earlier, Campbell sold the public on a vision of the individual hero, unfettered from community or history. He gave a postwar readership a seemingly timeless archetype for Americas unique brand of rugged individualism. He also helped to create a niche for the intersection of pop culture and pop psychology, paving the way for less savory exploitations of narrative by people like Jordan Peterson. Peterson has latched onto Campbells use of archetypes and gender roles and interprets them as the means for saving humanity from political polarization.

To demonstrate the ubiquity of the heros journey, Campbell plucked what was useful be it from the myths of the East African Chagga or the tales of the ancient Near East then fit the elements into a prefabricated frame, often, as Kent Huffman notes, without giving the elements proper consideration:

Campbell passingly cites the stories of Buddhism, Aztec myth, and Ovids Metamorphoses as examples of virgin birth, then goes on to recount in detail a Tongan folk tale he calls queer about a mother giving birth to a clam, which in tum becomes pregnant from eating a coconut husk and gives birth to a human boy. Campbell never specifically explains exactly how the image of virgin birth fits into the heroic cycle as he sets it up.

East Asian, South Asian, African, and Native American myths were often reduced to archetypes or misunderstood in service of Campbells thesis. Even his embrace of the Sanskrit word nanda as an inspiration for his famed follow your bliss message was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of its meaning in Hindu philosophy.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces was light on bibliography. But Campbell wasnt actually telling a new story. Less than a century before his book, writers and scholars like Lord Raglan and Otto Rank published observations on the core details common to heroic myths. Indeed, the beginning of the 20th century was a time for typologies of storytelling: Vladimir Propp followed the work of Raglan and Rank with his morphologies of the folktale, ranging wider and farther than his predecessors. Campbell also integrated Sigmund Freuds family drama and Carl Jungs archetypes to wed folktales with psychology. Like a midcentury Malcolm Gladwell, Campbell aggregated these theories and presented a compelling story to new audiences.

Monomythic elements do appear ancient and widespread. We find them in several overlapping cultural narratives, from Gilgamesh in ancient Babylon through Moses, Jesus, and the Homeric Achilles. The fatal flaw in Campbells blueprint is his failure to recognize that the heros journey does not exist in a vacuum. Campbell took little interest in theory or context and was particularly averse to growing fields like sociology or anthropology, and certainly to doing fieldwork. The Hero with a Thousand Faces may have not been wholly Eurocentric, but it plucked at will from global traditions and was definitely crafted for Western consumption.

Campbells theory made the leap from influential thought to universally accepted fact in part thanks to the wild success of George Lucass Star Wars franchise and, later, the PBS series The Power of Myth (1988), filmed in part at Lucass Skywalker Ranch. As Classicist Brett M. Rogers has observed, such cultural validation has inclined storytellers and audiences alike to see this pattern everywhere.

Like many tales of compulsion, Campbells Hero brings dangers to those who put their faith in it. The first is a serious misunderstanding of how myth works. Myths and traditional stories function in specific environments for reasons bounded by time and place. Common traits are interesting, but the differences what we might call variations or multiforms cannot be ignored.

The second is the existence of an ideal form in myth. How we talk about and choose to accept differences is important. Calling one version of a story a variant implies, wrongly, that there is an authoritative and original form. This is a top-down version of storytelling that often misses the significance of the differences themselves. Famous things we think we know about ancient myths are mere possibilities contingent on their time and place. In many stories, Medea did not kill her children. In a majority of tales, Oedipus had children with someone other than his mother.

The Monomyth is the ultimate example of this simplifying of narrative patterns. It reminds us in a way of the Greek myth of Procrustes, the criminal hotelier who cut guests up or stretched them out to fit the bed of his choosing. Campbell started with a thesis and a fictive metric and then cut global myths to fit his Odyssean bed.

Another challenge comes from what audiences know and expect. As defenders of Campbell will argue, much of what he suggests is meant to be allegorical. The heros journey is not supposed to be a simple narrative pattern; it is instead a psychological, even mystical, exploration of the self. But his language, which is derived from myth, is slippery and due to its outsize influence it affects how people understand ancient traditions. Modern notions of the word hero, for example, assume essential goodness or imply selfless deeds on behalf of others. Ancient heroes and figures from myth are anything but essentially good. Within ancient myths, heroes are young people in their full strength; they are part of a generation before the iron age of modern humans, marking the transition from a time when gods and people shared the earth. They can also be exceptional figures who follow a pattern of withdrawal and return to their communities, suffering pain and inflicting suffering in turn.

One of the most troubling things about Campbells Monomyth is its omission of the truth of Greek heroic myth: heroes hurt people. They threaten families and cities. Herakles goes mad and kills his wife and children (even if Disneys version of Hercules lived happily ever after with Megara), triggering his famous labors as punishment. Achilles prays for his own people to die to pay for a slight to his honor, and his beloved Patroclus gets caught up in this. Odysseus returns home after losing his entire army only to kill 108 of his people and hang the enslaved women of his household.

The Monomyth encourages audiences to see themselves as protagonists in a great struggle and all others as either helping or hindering their journey. The use of the Monomyth is in a way nearly perfectly narcissistic. It invites audiences to focus on just one character, to see the world as serving the interests of one singular point of view. In the stories themselves, all other characters are helpers, objects, or obstacles in a heros tale.

The hero with a thousand faces turns out to have a depressingly constant appearance. He projects a toxically masculine, heteronormative point of view that often marginalizes other voices and bodies. Despite some heroes of color in recent years, Campbells narrative offspring have generally been white and male. When we make heroes of women, we often sidestep or mute their sexuality and capacity to give birth (as in the case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and render them essentially masculine. When we cast Black stars as classic or new heroes, audience rage and rejection show that racism is a feature and not a bug of the heroic game.

It is not enough to put the heroic narrative through a diversity, equity, and inclusion workshop. Its structure itself assumes a particular worldview as dominant and casts socially derived personalities as natural. Campbells hero is ruggedly individual; it uses weaker people as instruments; and it has no room for collective action, for families, or for bodies that fail to conform: the aged, the disabled, the sick.

This is not to say there havent been challenges to Campbells universalism. There are plenty of examples of heroic narratives that run counter to the Monomyth: Frank Herberts Dune, for example, presents Paul Atreides struggling against the force of fate and propaganda; Robert Jordans Rand alThor spends 14 books exploring the madness of being a hero; Philip Pullmans Lyra in His Dark Materials tries to undermine gender roles and the marginalization of sexuality.

In recent years, entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) have also looked hard at heroic personalities, just as the danger of heroes has been explored on shows like The Umbrella Academy, Amazons The Boys, and Netflixs recent Jupiters Legacy, which dramatizes the psychological and parental trauma of being the child of a superhero. But we are only at the beginning of the reflective turn. The Randian and Campbellian model still holds sway, both in art and in life. Perhaps the most disturbing recent example of the latter is the way critics went after gymnast Simone Biles for thinking about her health rather than following the dangerous template of the hero they wanted her to be.

Myth does indeed provide a framework for thinking about life, for engaging with it and learning how to live. Heroic myth actually functions to highlight the dangers of violence and war; to outline the importance of families and cities; and to help us think about that most ineffable of mysteries, death. The Monomyth leaves little room for growing old, for having families, for learning to live once the fight is over.

We wont side with Plato and ban stories we think are dangerous to the republic, but we need to acknowledge that stories can do damage. The Monomyth sets up unrealistic expectations. It harms people who dont see themselves represented and it traps people in roles based on the bodies they inhabit, on skin color, race, sex, gender, and ability.

The virus central to the Monomyth is who and what it centers. It is predicated on a view of life that validates using and profiting from other people. Campbellian simplification is a natural complement to American capitalism and the pursuit of individual bliss: it emphasizes the individual and personal over community. The Monomyth is about privileging one kind of story and profiting from it.

In the newly unveiled MCU offshoot Loki, the plot centers on an institution called the Time Variance Authority (TVA). The TVA is tasked with protecting peace within the multiverse by hunting down renegade time variants that may cause chaos and disrupt the Sacred Timeline the primary timeline of the past, present, and future dictated by the mysterious triumvirate known as the Time Keepers. TVA agents think they are helping humanity by preserving, pruning, and policing the singular Sacred Timeline, but the peace offered by maintaining it comes at the cost of the true unifying feature of humanity: the freedom of choice.

Moving out of the MCU and back into reality, there are gains to be made from deconstructing the Monomyth. The idea of an individual but universal path that can lead to redemption, unity, and heroization is undeniably magnetic, but even in Campbells cosmos, it is not available to all. Critiques of the heros journey can show us how to embrace the messiness of myth and accept the inevitable variances in our personal and collective journeys.

Sarah E. Bond is an associate professor of History at the University of Iowa and the director of Undergraduate Studies.

Joel Christensen is professor and chair of Classical Studies at Brandeis University and serves as senior associate dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Arts and Sciences.

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The Man Behind the Myth: Should We Question the Hero's Journey? - lareviewofbooks

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For the last four years, deepfake videos have challenged reality, turning empirical evidence into an artifact of the past. Can you really trust what you see online?

The technology soon spread out on sites like Reddit, with mainstream media featuring headlines ever more alarming we chronicled the major happenings here.

No matter what you feel about deepfakes, this tech is here to stay and these are the best deepfake videos you should know about. From the funny to the alarming or downright unsettling, we compiled the best deepfake videos through the years and chronicled the rise of this technology.

Deepfakes take their name from the deep learning AI technique and the word fake, so this term means fake images created through deep learning.

Of course, photo manipulation is nothing new, but the academics behind deepfakes brought the concept to videos and changed the world as we know it.

An AI technique that combines existing images and videos to create new images and videos, usually clones indistinguishable from reality, deepfakes came to prominence in 2017 with a viral video of former US President Obama.

As we said in our previous report on this tech, the main techniques used to make deepfakes are based on deep learning, training generative neural network architectures or using generative adversarial networks (GANs).

The first notorious example, the original Obama deepfake, demonstrated a very advanced lip syncing technology where the subjects say whatever the computer tells them to say, without needing to be in the studio and record the voice.

This viral video came after other computer scientists played with images of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin but, back then, the tech was still considered innocent.

In that project, the researchers envisioned their tech being used for better foreign language dubbing in movies and even accurate live video chat translations.

Fast forward a couple of years and the US president is saying whatever is fed into the program, we have deepfake pornography, deepfake voice scams and deepfake apps anyone could use to become their favorite actor. In a very short time, this tech took over the internet.

Indeed, you can make your own deepfakes with just a couple of clicks or taps.

The Zao deepfake app lets you upload an image of your face and turns you into your favorite actor or superhero. While the app was branded more like a face-swap app, the accuracy with which Zao superimposes faces on pre-selected videos is more akin to deepfake technology.

It was the start of the face-swap apps madness and even social media giants jumped on the trend.

First, there were the filter makers of Instagram, who offered premium AR filters to add regular peoples faces into existing videos.

Then, the Snapchat Cameo feature, the first official one from a major social media platform, used deepfake tech to let users add their own faces to different activities and turn the result into a shareable gif.

While these apps were used to create cute, shareable content, the deepfake tech does have a dark side to it.

Privacy experts around the world sounded the alarm on deepfakes and how they could be used to generate fake news. Even actor Jordan Peele took over Barack Obamas face in a deepfake warning about how this tech could impact the social and political landscape.

However, according to one report, this tech could have a more immediate negative impact on regular Internet users.

According to the The State of Deepfakes study authored by cybersecurity company Deeptrace, the majority of deepfakes floating online are porn deepfakes, and not videos used to support fake news. And the numbers paint a very sketchy picture.

The researchers found a total 14,678 deepfake pornographic videos online. Alarmingly, 96% of them were non-consensual.

Deepfake pornography accounts for a significant majority of deepfake videos online, even as other forms of non-pornographic deepfakes have gained popularity, warned the experts, and the broken down numbers look no better.

Deepfake pornography is a phenomenon that exclusively targets and harms women, said researchers, who found the content on deepfake pornography websites to have an 100% female content, unlike on YouTube, where women were deepfaked in just 39% of the videos.

According to their report, all but 1% of the subjects featured in deepfake pornography videos were actresses and musicians working in the entertainment sector.

The authors chose to not publish the names of women targeted by deepfakes but they did provide a breakdown of the most popular categories.

While the entire world was focused on the dangers of deepfakes on the political scene and the effects of disinformation, this tech was quietly spreading as a destructive social force at the most intimate level.

A report called The Double Exploitation of Deepfake Porn focused on revenge porn and IP theft as the more pressing concerns.

First, unsuspecting women are fetishized by the making of a deepfake video, humiliated or subjected to blackmail. Then, the videos used to create those deepfakes are actually the livelihood of sex workers online, who make a living from their original content.

In some cases, deepfake technology has been used as a tool to emotionally manipulate and shame.

In one report, a mother used explicit deepfake photos and videos to kick her daughters cheerleading rivals off the team. She combed through her daughters social media friends, took their pictures, and then used one of the popular deepfake apps to portray daughters colleagues naked, drinking and smoking. A new and troubling case of cyberbullying, this incident highlights the need to create tools to identify deepfakes.

Currently, there arent any apps to detect deepfakes, at least no apps dedicated to regular Internet users.

There is however a project made by a couple of University of Washington scientists, which aims to help you spot images that are actually computer-generated. WhichFaceIsReal.com puts actual photos of people side by side with deepfakes generated by Nvidias AI algorithm StyleGAN, which is able to create almost-perfect portraits of humans.

This exercise can teach you the tell-tale signs of AI-generated portraits, from weird backgrounds to teeth details.

You can also achieve the same results by watching some of the best deepfake videos released so far.

Thanks to Reddit, which was one of the first and biggest deepfake communities since the beginning, there is a wealth of Nicolas Cage deepfakes and each is funnier than the previous one.

Thought this actor had incredible range and a very long IMDB portfolio? Thats nothing compared with what the fake Nic Cage has been up to.

The same goes for the variety of Tom Cruise deepfakes. In one famous video, the fake Tom Cruise is discussing an encounter with the former Soviet-leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In another, hes playing golf.

All of them were viral sensations thanks to the @deeptomcruise account on TikTok. Theyre created by Belgian visual effects artist Chris Ume, who combined deepfake technology with a professional Tom Cruise impersonator to create some of the most convincing deepfakes yet.

Then, theres this impressive use of deepfake technology in documentaries. Director Morgan Neville deepfaked Anthony Bourdains voice to create a narration for the Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain documentary.

When you hear the late chef saying You are successful, and I am successful, and Im wondering: Are you happy?, its actually a computer-generated voice.

Deepfake voices are actually among the first applications of deepfake technology and some of the hardest ones to detect from reality.

In 2019, author and academic Jordan Peterson, a controversial figure online, was targeted with this technology by a website that let anyone create a deepfake Jordan Peterson voice.

The neural network called NotJordanPeterson was trained to mimic the voice of Peterson and released online for anyone to use. Anyone could type anything and have the fake Peterson talk out loud, so the project had plenty of potential for misuse and could be arguably categorized as a very damaging form of cyberbullying. He responded by warning that deepfake artists and the misuse of this technology could make it so that we can no longer tell whats real and whats not.

In another, cuter project, a Jordan Peterson AI model was taught to sing Lose Yourself by Eminem.

Eminem was also the star of another popular deepfake project, one which took a social stance.

The same group who used AI to create a deepfake Eminem diss for Mark Zuckerberg, called Calamity AI, made a deepfake Eminem rap against the patriarchy, featuring a deepfake Kanye West. Notably, the lyrics were also created by AI. The project used Shortly.AI, a text generator based on the OpenAI GPT-3 project, and produced some pretty hilarious lyrics.

But if youre looking for the absolute best deepfake video, it belongs to the Star Wars universe.

With such a large fandom, it makes sense that Star Wars deepfakes would abound but this particular project stands heads and shoulders above all of them.

The Mandalorian Luke Skywalker Deepfake created by a famous YouTuber was so jaw-dropping, LucasFilm actually hired him.

Shamook, the creator of this Lucas Skywalker deepfake, demonstrated the full potential of de-aging technology and made a fake Mark Hamill indistinguishable from the real actor.

Certainly, deepfake technology is capable of transcending the limitations of space and time. It can de-age actors, bring beloved voices back from the dead and turn public personalities into whatever your imagination dreams up. As youve seen so far, its also a disruptive technology that has been misused time and time again, sometimes with scary consequences.

So, what do you think about this technology? Are you threatened by its implications or amazed by its potential? What types of safeguards or deepfake legislation should be created to distinguish the real from the computer-generated?

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What Deepfakes Can Do: The Best Videos And the Deepfake Apps Changing Reality - TechTheLead

Patrick Peterson had previously spent the entirety of his career with the Cardinals, and apparently, he really didnt want to leave, which is why he seems to still have a bad taste in his mouth regarding how management handled his contract situation.

Peterson was the fifth pick in the 2011 draft, as he was viewed as a shutdown cornerback who could also spark explosive plays in the return game. And while both were true at the time, NFL teams eventually realized its not wise to have superstar-caliber players on expensive contracts on special teams duty. But he did return a few punts in late-game scenarios when the Cardinals were in need of a big play.

And while Peterson was a great player for the Cardinals for roughly a decade, his coverage skills have declined over the past few seasons. Hes just not the same player he once was, which isnt surprising, as he turned 31 last month. And thats probably why the Cardinals chose not to re-sign him during the offseason.

Instead, the Vikings inked him to a one-year, $8 million deal with the Vikings. And while Peterson is focused on the future, he clearly hasnt forgotten about how the Cardinals treated him during contract negotiations.

I was just frustrated and upset at how upper management handled the situation, Peterson said, via The Athletic. You tell me one thing, then when its time to talk, you turn your shoulder on me like its cold shoulder. Ive been in this league a long time. Thirty years old. Grown man. Talk to me like a grown man, not like a child or your side piece.

He also explained why he settled for a one-year prove it deal.

Im willing to bet on myself for this season knowing the salary cap is going to go back up, and I can have opportunities to come back to the table and get more than what I got this year, Peterson said.

It sure looks like Peterson will be motivated to stick it to his former team this season.

Read more:

Patrick Peterson shares frustration with Cardinals over past contract negotiations - Yardbarker

Image credit: M W via Pixabay.

Is science nested in religion, or is religion nested in science? Is it just the practitioners of organized religion who are religious, or is everyone religious, in some sense? If so, where did this religious impulse come from, and what does it mean about our past and our future? Rock-star psychologist Jordan Peterson may be primarily known for his political controversies, but in fact, these are the sorts of questions that really keep him up at night. Listeners who tune into his podcast will hear him wrestle through them in collaboration with his guests. One of his livelier recent conversation partners was physicist Lawrence Krauss, a notorious name in ID circles.

I wrote some thoughts on that podcast here, but the conversation was too wide-ranging to be contained to one post. In one of the most interesting sections, Peterson laid out his own off-beat take on the relationship between science and religion. Krauss didnt fully disagree, but didnt fully agree either. Both their insights and their mistakes are fascinating.

Krauss and Peterson are agreed here: Everybodys got religion. In fact, Krauss surprised atheist colleagues like Michael Shermer and Andrew Copson when he took up this position in an Oxford Union debate on the question. One definitely wouldnt have predicted that Lawrence Krauss and John Lennox would be arguing from the same side of the debate table, but in fact they both argued the pro side of the houses assertion that We are all religious. Michael Shermer dissented that If everyone is religious, no one is. But Krauss suggested one has only to look at movements like the rise of wokeness as ersatz religiosity to see that with or without a formal belief in a supernatural entity, people will inevitably apply the patterns of religious practice to their ideology of choice.

Peterson heartily agrees, but he wants to go deeper, into the psychology of the scientific enterprise itself. He believes science is nested in religion, not the other way around. By this, he means that the motivating forces behind scientific discovery arent themselves scientific. Borrowing from Carl Jung, he frames the Scientific Revolution as the replacement of one myth with another a materialist redemptive myth to fill the gap left behind by the collapse of the spiritualist redemptive myth. We tried to redeem our inadequacy through spiritual discipline, but meanwhile, people were still dying of leprosy. This was not good! Something had to be done, but what?

Well, we collectively thought, perhaps it was time to have a look at how we could arrange an improvement in our material condition by studying matter. But the thing driving us, the reason we were interested in solving these particular problems, was the desire to expand human competence and increase human well-being.

In other words, our values were guiding the choice, exploration and manipulation of our facts. But where did those values come from? Certainly not from science.

Krauss is picking up what Peterson is laying downsort of. He cautions that we want to be careful not to slip into a post-modern frame where we no longer care about the facts. Yes, he agrees, certainly Reason is the slave of passion, and certainly scientists are only human, thus driven by subjective desires like everyone else. But at the end of the day, the great thing about science is that its not based just on what I want. Its about what nature tells me. All the best scientists could be looking in the wrong place, but if someone is wrong, they have to change their minds. And thats the beauty of science. Its that nature determines whats beautiful.

Really? Including the beauty of science?

So far, so interesting. But careful listeners will quickly pick up a persistent flaw in how Peterson presents his thesis. Both in his writing and his speaking, he consistently uses the word objective for empirical, scientific observations, then emphasizes the great divide between this world and the subjective world of value judgments about human worth, behavior, and proper goals. For him, statements like The Holocaust was wrong or It is noble to seek a cure for leprosy are not objective statements of fact, but subjective statements of value.

Not that Peterson intends to demote the importance of such statements. To the contrary, he believes these are the principles that govern and cradle the scientific enterprise indeed, the whole enterprise of civilization. His thesis is not that subjective = bad. Rather, it is that were all subjectively driven creatures, like it or not.

In this sense, one could say Peterson is opposed to scientism, which makes science the most authoritative discipline of all disciplines. Yet in another sense, one could say hes still fallen into the scientistic trap, because he has still co-identified the objective with the material, the measurable, the empirically observable. Its as if it hasnt seriously occurred to him that something might be objectively true without being discoverable by the scientific method. Yet moral facts are just as discoverable as empirical facts. We just use a different set of tools and intuitions to access them. Just as we know a metal detector wont go off on a walk in the woods, we know right and wrong cant be put in a test tube.

Its curious to watch Petersons mind work in these conversations, because he is clearly impassioned and clearly has better intuitions than people like Lawrence Krauss and Sam Harris. The problem is that hes still just enough of a secular modernist himself to be ultimately stuck in the same rut as they are.

Of course, theres a gaping God-shaped hole in both Krauss and Petersons particular ways of spinning all this. Petersons history of ideas leaves out the fact that scientists like Kepler werent just motivated to do science to expand human competence. As Stephen Meyer notes in Return of the God Hypothesis, they were motivated to think Gods thoughts after Him. Figures like Kepler are a particular annoyance for Krauss, but they also pose a challenge to Peterson, who, sympathetic as he is to religion, still wants to work within a naturalistic frame.

But each of them still gets something right. Krauss correctly intuits that Petersons thinking has a pragmatic flavor which could endanger a correspondence view of truth, redefining it as that which is useful. Meanwhile, Peterson correctly intuits that we are the ones who have to tell nature what is beautiful, not vice versa. In the same way, we may unlock the secrets of the hydrogen atom and determine the steps to build a bomb with it. But should we? And once we have, what do we do next?

Science cannot explain. And as long as science cannot explain, we will be searching for the thing which can. Lawrence Krauss seems to be content to stop searching. But I look forward to where Jordan Petersons search takes him.

Follow this link:

Jordan Peterson Springs the Trap of Scientism - Discovery Institute

The Jordan Brewers took the first step in returning to another Class C state tournament.

The top-seeded Brewers opened the Region 6C playoffs Aug. 1 with a 4-1 home victory over the 15th-seeded Wells Wildcats.

Nate Beckman tossed a complete game to lead the way, striking out nine while allowing five hits and one earned run.

Jordan scored all four of its runs in the fourth inning.

The region quarterfinals are Aug. 7 and Jordan will take on 10th-seeded Le Sueur at 6 p.m. The semifinals are Aug. 8. The higher seed is at home for both rounds.

The title game is set for Aug. 14 in Arlington at 7 p.m., while the third-place game is the same day in Arlington at 4 p.m.

The Brewers won the Class C state title in 2019 and went 22-5-1 last season, but lost in the third round of state play to Fairmont.

Jordan also won state championships in 1986, 1994 and 2004.

In beating Wells, Jordans four runs came on just six hits, all singles. Scott Hollingsworth, Devyn Ulibarri and Jonathan Draheim each had RBIs in the four-run, fourth inning.

Joe Lucas and Steve Beckman each had a hit and run scored. Dylan Peterson and Hollinsworth also scored runs for the Brewers. Greg Quist finished 2 for 3.

Jordan finished the regular season with a 23-9 overall record, including going 10-0 in the River Valley Class C standings.

The next three highest seeds in Region 6C behind Jordan are Waterville, St. Clair and Gaylord, respectively. The Brewers lost 15-2 to Waterville back on July 11 and blanked Gaylord 6-0 on the road July 25.

This years 48-team Class C state tournament will be held in Chaska, Waconia and Hamburg. First-round action starts Aug. 19.

Read more here:

Brewers open the Region 6C playoffs with home win over Wells - SW News Media

The White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (Initiative) today announced its eighth cohort of HBCU Scholars. This program recognizes 86 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students for their accomplishments in academics, leadership, civic engagement and much more.

Currently enrolled at 54 of our nation's HBCUs, the scholars were selected from an applicant pool of over 200 students who submitted completed applications that included a transcript, resume, essay, and letter of recommendation. Applications also required the signature of their university president, adding a level of prestige to this application process.

"The HBCU Scholars announced today all have demonstrated remarkable dedication to their learning and exemplify the talent that our nation's Historically Black Colleges and Universities have nurtured for generations," said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. "The students who hold this honor are committed to creating a more just and equitable society through their civic engagement. They are leaders and change-makers in their communities, and I cannot wait to learn from them as they serve as ambassadors both for the White House Initiative and their institutions of higher education."

"As President of the State of Florida's first Historically Black College or University I am exceedingly pleased to support the tremendous work of the Initiative in its most recent selection and recognition of the nation's highest achieving scholar students from across our 105 historic institutions," said Edward Waters University President & CEO, Dr. A. Zachary Faison, Jr. "The White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities Scholars Program's longstanding commitment and emphasis upon platforming the very best and brightest amongst our students and showcasing their exceptional high scholarship and demonstrable leadership on a national stage speaks directly not only to the continuing contemporaneous relevance of HBCUs but equally underscores the uncontroverted depth of extraordinary talent that our institutions continue to produce and possess."

Over the course of an academic school year, the HBCU Scholars selected through this program will serve as ambassadors of the Initiative and their respected institution. The Initiative will provide scholars with information about the value of education as well as networking opportunities. Scholars can also share these resources with their fellow students.

Through their relationships with community-based organizations, and public and private partners, all of which are gained through this recognition, scholars will also share promising and proven practices that support opportunities for all young people to achieve their educational and career potential.

This cohort of HBCU Scholars will also participate in national and regional events and monthly classes with Elyse Jones, HBCU Scholar Program Coordinator, Initiative staff and other professionals from a wide range of disciplines. All HBCU Scholar events are designed to connect HBCU students with non-profit, business, and federal leaders to discuss professional development while identifying challenges and providing equitable solutions to barriers that HBCU students face when preparing and entering the 21st century workforce.

"Supporting the next generation of student leaders who will continue their education and graduate from HBCUs has been the highlight and joy of my career with the Initiative" says Elyse Jones, HBCU Scholar Program Coordinator. "It is my honor to announce these 86 students who will continue to make meaningful contributions to our country. Each student selected into this program has demonstrated their commitment to their academic achievements and improving their communities. I look forward to working with them as partners I can't wait to see what they will do as leaders."

Selected HBCU Scholars will be invited to the 2021 HBCU Week National Annual Conference, which will take place September 7-10, 2021. This year's conference theme is "Exploring Equity." During their time at the conference, they will participate in sessions about entrepreneurship, innovation, and personal and professional development. Most importantly, they will also have opportunities to engage with one another and showcase their individual and collective talent across the HBCU community.

More information about the HBCU Scholars' activities will be provided in the coming months as they serve as ambassadors of the White House Initiative on Historically Black colleges and Universities.

NOTE TO EDITORS:Below is a list of the 2021 HBCU Scholars in alphabetical order by their hometown state, and including the city they are from, the school they attend and the school's location. (Sorted by School Location)

Athens- Michelle Deesattends J.F. Drake State Technical College, Huntsville, AL

Mobile- Jerika Edwardsattends Dillard University, New Orleans, LA

Montgomery- Austin Smithattends Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL

Montgomery- Lydia Williamsattends Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL

Pelham- Ayala Seabornattends Talladega College, Talladega, TX

Prichard- Kennedy Davisattends Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, AL

Talladega- Ashton Hallattends Talladega College, Talladega, AL

Tuskegee- Bruce Tylerattends Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL

Little Rock- Aaron Slaterattends Arkansas Baptist College, Little Rock, AR

Marion- Spencer Jonesattends Dillard University, New Orleans, LA

North Little Rock- Alexandria Williams attends Jackson State University,Jackson, MS

West Memphis- DeShawn Barnesattends Lane College, Jackson, TN

Hayward- Zauria Murphyattends Bennet College, Greensboro, NC

District of Columbia- Chandler Nutallattends Spelman College, Atlanta, GA

Cocoa- Deben Petersonattends Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte, SC

Miami- Myrlandie Myrbelattends Florida Memorial University, Miami, FL

North Port- Brianna Brooksattends Oakwood University, Huntsville, AL

Riverview- Naim Brownattends Edward Waters College, Jacksonville, FL

Acworth-Jacob Robinsonattends Hampton University, Hampton, VA

Acworth-Taylor Dorseyattends Fort Valley State University, Fort Valley, GA

Albany-Brianna Pendergrassattends Edward Waters College, Jacksonville, FL

Atlanta- Alexandre Hurleyattends Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA

Atlanta- Ashleigh Smithattends Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL

Atlanta-Brandon Grahamattends Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA

Atlanta- Jayla Rossattends Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, Lincoln University, PA

Atlanta- Raven Hollisattends Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, TX

Atlanta-Valerie Bennettattends Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA

Augusta-LeShawn Doolittleattends Paine College, Augusta, GA

Augusta-Joshua Gayleattends Voorhees College, Denmark, SC

Cartersville- Christy Turnerattends Coppin State University, Baltimore, MD

Jonesboro- Madison Staffordattends Paine College, Augusta, GA

McDonough- Kerra Kellyattendees Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL

Snellville- Sydney Nelsonattends Jackson State University, Jackson, MS

Harvey- Kristopher Bondattends Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, MS

Frankfort--Chaundra Bush --attends Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY

Baton Rouge- Edrius Staffattends Southern University Law Center, Baton Rouge, LA

Lafayette- Normandie Cormierattends Xavier University, New Orleans, LA

Ponchatoula- Noah Williamsattends Xavier University, New Orleans, LA

Zachary- Kevin Taylor- Jarrellattends Southern A&M University, Baton Rouge, LA

Bowie- Paige Blakeattends Bowie State University, Bowie, MD

Bowie-Janine Jacksonattends Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD

Ellicott City- Lauren Brownattends Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD

Hyattsville- Michael McGeeattends Bowie State University, Bowie MD

Silver Spring- Fottmatta Tunkaraattends Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Detroit- McKinley Loweryattends Norfolk State University, Norfolk, VA

Inkster- Jayla Berry attends Benedict College, Columbia, SC

Columbus- Ganesa Williamsattends Rust College, Holy Springs, MS

Jackson- Sydney Burksattends Hinds Community College, Utica, MS

Pickens- Kalon Johnsonattends Alcorn State University, Lorman, MS

Florisson- Jordan Braithwaiteattends Grambling State University, Grambling, LA

CharlotteRaven Hamiltonattends Shaw University, Raleigh, NC

Charlotte- Rachel Richardsattends North Carolina A&T University, Greensboro, NC

Durham- Derrick Stanfieldattends North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC

Efland- Milosh McAdooattends North Carolina A&T University, Greensboro, NC

Jamestown- Shemika Summerattends Shaw University, Raleigh, NC

Raleigh- Efhe Ikharoattends North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC

Winston-Salem- Varvara Papakonstantinouattends Livingstone College, Salisbury, NC

Camden-Inaaya Colemanattends Delaware State University, Dover, DE

Ewing- Elijah Kellyattends Benedict College, Columbia, SC

Jersey City- Kimberly Gardnerattends Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Ekiti- Iyunola Owoyemiattends Alcorn State University, Lorman, MS

Dayton- Demetrius Youngattends Kentucky State University, Frankfurt, KY

Dayton- Quintin Jordanattends Livingstone College, Salisbury, NC

Ardmore- Joseph Fields --attends Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN

Oklahoma City- Kiyana Akinsattends Texas Southern University, Houston, TX

Rafa Gaza Strip- Roulan Abunahlaattends Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, AL

Philadelphia- Juliana Paulattends Delaware State University, Dover, DE

Philadelphia- Stephen Brownattends Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL

Philadelphia- Z' Sakina Jacksonattends Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, Lincoln University, PA

Read more:

White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities Announces 2021 HBCU Scholars - U.S. Department of Education

New York Mets (55-49, first in the NL East) vs. Miami Marlins (44-61, fifth in the NL East)

Miami; Monday, 7:10 p.m. EDT

PITCHING PROBABLES: Mets: Tylor Megill (1-0, 2.04 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 39 strikeouts) Marlins: TBD

FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Marlins +128, Mets -150; over/under is 7 runs

BOTTOM LINE: The New York Mets head to face the Miami Marlins on Monday.

The Marlins are 24-26 on their home turf. Miami has slugged .371 this season. Elieser Hernandez leads the team with a mark of .500.

The Mets have gone 22-29 away from home. New York has slugged .385 this season. Pete Alonso leads the club with a .499 slugging percentage, including 36 extra-base hits and 23 home runs.

The Marlins won the last meeting 5-1. Cody Poteet notched his second victory and Poteet went 1-for-3 with an RBI for Miami. Jordan Yamamoto took his first loss for New York.

TOP PERFORMERS: Jesus Aguilar leads the Marlins with 35 extra base hits and is batting .261.

Javier Baez leads the Mets with 23 home runs and has 68 RBIs.

LAST 10 GAMES: Marlins: 4-6, .237 batting average, 2.79 ERA, outscored opponents by two runs

Mets: 4-6, .258 batting average, 5.38 ERA, outscored by 25 runs

INJURIES: Marlins: Cody Poteet: (knee), Pablo Lopez: (rotator cuff), Elieser Hernandez: (quad), Daniel Castano: (shoulder), Jeff Brigham: (undisclosed), Jesus Sanchez: (covid-19 protocols), Garrett Cooper: (elbow), Jose Devers: (shoulder), Jon Berti: (concussion).

Mets: Jordan Yamamoto: (shoulder), Noah Syndergaard: (elbow), Robert Stock: (hamstring), Sean Reid-Foley: (elbow), David Peterson: (side), Corey Oswalt: (knee), Stephen Nogosek: (shoulder), Joey Lucchesi: (elbow), Robert Gsellman: (lat), Jacob deGrom: (forearm), Dellin Betances: (shoulder), Jose Peraza: (finger), Jose Martinez: (knee), Francisco Lindor: (oblique), Luis Guillorme: (hamstring).

___

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

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New York Mets to visit the Miami Marlins - Associated Press

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist, and the author of the bestsellers Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life & 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, #1 for nonfiction in 2018 in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, the Netherlands, Brazil and Norway, and slated for translation into 50 languages.

Raised and toughened in the frigid wastelands of Northern Alberta, Dr. Peterson has flown a hammer-head roll in a carbon-fiber stuntplane, piloted a mahogany racing sailboat around Alcatraz Island, explored an Arizona meteorite crater with a group of astronauts, built a Native American Long-House on the upper floor of his Toronto home, and been inducted into a Pacific Kwakwakawakw family (see charlesjoseph.ca). Hes been a dishwasher, gas jockey, bartender, short-order cook, beekeeper, oil derrick bit re-tipper, plywood mill laborer and railway line worker. Hes taught mythology to physicians, lawyers, and businessmen; worked with Jim Balsillie, former CEO of Blackberrys Research in Motion, on Resilient People, Resilient Planet, the report of the UN Secretary Generals High Level Panel on Global Sustainability; helped his clinical clients manage the triumphs and catastrophes of life; served as an advisor to senior partners of major Canadian law firms; penned the forward for the 50th anniversary edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns The Gulag Archipelago; lectured across North America, Europe and Australia in one of the most-well attended booktoursever mounted; and, for The Founder Institute, identified thousands of promising entrepreneurs, in 60 different countries.

With his students and colleagues, Dr. Peterson has published more than a hundred scientific papers, advancing the modern understanding of creativity, competence and personality, while his now-classic book,Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief(released in June 2018as a now bestselling author-readaudiobook) transformed the psychology of religion. He was nominated for five consecutive years as one of Ontarios Best University Lecturers, and is one of only three profs rated as life changing in the U of Ts underground student handbook of course ratings.

In 2016, shortly before the publication of 12 Rules, several of Dr. Petersons online lectures, videos and interviews went viral, launching him into unprecedented international prominence as a public intellectual and educator. His work, public postings and discussions are featured on the following platforms:

Dr. Petersons classroom lectures on mythology and the psychology of religion, based on Maps of Meaning (2016 version here), were turned into a popular 13-part TV series on Canadian public televisionsTVO. Malcolm Gladwell discussed psychology with him while researching his books; Norman Doidge, author of The Brain that Changes Itself, wrote the forward to 12 Rules; and bestselling thriller writer Gregg Hurwitz employed several of his valuable things as a plot feature in his #1 international bestseller, Orphan X.

With his colleagues, Dr. Daniel M. Higgins and Dr. Robert O. Pihl, Dr. Peterson has also produced two online programs to help people understand themselves better and to improve their psychological and practical functioning. The most recent of these, UnderstandMyself, provides its users with detailed information about their personalities, based on work he published with his students here. Tens of thousands of people now know themselves better, as a consequence of completing this 15-minute program.His original self-analysis program,theSelf Authoring Suite, (featured in O: The Oprah Magazine, CBC radio, and NPRs national website), has helped over 200,000 people resolve the problems of their past, rectify their personality faults and enhance their virtues, and radically improve their future. Research documenting the programs effectiveness can be found here and here.

Dr. Peterson has appeared on many popular podcasts and shows, including the Joe Rogan Experience (#877, #958, #1006), The Rubin Report (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Free Speech, Psychology, Gender Pronouns), H3H3(#37), and many more. He is currently working on a new book, tentatively titledBeyond Mere Order: 12 More Rules for Life, slated for publication in late 2020.

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Jordan Peterson | About

Short rant. I cannot believe how many people hate JP.

I have been listening to lectures by JP almost every day for the past 2 years. I dont care if I repeat them, they always serve me well. I started implementing his philosophy into my life.in the last two years I obtained a health care job in a career I have an education for, have received 2 raises and have been given full time hours. It took me 2 years to get the same wage and authority as my female coworkers who have been there for 5+ years (Im a male dental hygienist). I have improved my relationship with my father, and my life in general is on a steep incline that seems to be working well for me. I am happy most of the time, and when Im not, Im not getting burdened by anger and regret; simply frustration and a desire to remedy the problem.

However, my heart recently broke when I had a talk with my father. He is a left-wing Canadian who hates anything to do with the right. Anyone who identifies as right leaning gets the arbitrary label right wing nut job from him and even my own mother cannot stand him when he catches wind of political news because his reactions are immature and predictable. Thats not what hurt.

What hurt is that he finally asked me how I managed to get my shit together so well. I told him about JP, and that I was so excited to finally listen to and understand truth in a way that could benefit me and those around me.

To my chagrin, my father immediately dismissed JP as a right wing nut job. I begged him to listen to some of his interviews or lectures to better understand what he was saying. Instead my father found every sound bite possible of people who hate JP taking him out of context. When I point out how ridiculous it is to think he could be saying anything other than genuine truthful help, my father goes on about how he pushes religion and says you cant have a religious experience without magic mushrooms. I cant believe my own father is listening to this man and only hearing things he hates. Hell ignore a 10 min clip to focus on one sentence and dismiss Peterson afterwards.

Then I came on Reddit to find that theres a whole sub dedicated to straight up hating JP, taking him out of context, and making light of anything he says whatsoever.

Why does my idiot father want to hate JP so much? Why are there a colossal amount of people who havent extracted a single positive message from JP?

My real life is going great, everyone always asks me how I managed to get where I am in just 2 years but when I tell them I changed my mindset because of JP and they look him up, they dismiss him. Ask how I solved my problems dismiss the only answerwhy are so many people not only dismissive but hateful of a person who has helped so many?

It makes me weep for the future.

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Jordan Peterson: Descensus ad inferos - reddit