Who are the most important thinkers right now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jordan Peterson

Yes, he’s an important thinker for incels

If you really think this, I am fairly certain that you have not heard more than a 20-second clip of his thoughts.
A very small part of his focus at one time was in helping lost young men find meaning in their lives and in trying to figure out why so many were feeling so lost and as if their lives were lacking in direction or meaning as compared to former generations. And he has helped many young men turn their lives around by guiding them on a path toward responsibility, accountability, and purpose.

But he covers so many more topics in his clinical research and body of work. He’s a highly educated, widely published, bright scholar in his field (and this was the case long before he started trending about five years ago in YouTube for challenging Canadian law that was seeking to compel speech. (He was honestly questioning why any law should be made that was requiring someone to say a certain thing rather than just choose to not say the thing or not address it at all. In that particular case, it happened to be a law requiring someone to address someone by their preferred pronouns, with criminal penalties attached if one declined to do this. And his point was “I’m happy to do this to be polite in society, but the idea that anyone is required to address anyone in ANY particular way under threat of violation of the law is unprecedented and tyrannical. Why would we want government to make such a law?” Suddenly, from that, he was branded as anti-trans and anti-liberal.
And this made him re-think a lot of the ideas help by so-called liberals who, it turns out, are maybe not so liberal anymore.

He's not really know for anything he did prior to 5 years ago or whenever it was. It's not like he was a known quantity before then.

He may not have been widely known to the general public prior to the publicity around his resistance to that particular Canadian law, but Peterson was an accomplished academic and a popular teacher at the University of Toronto and Harvard. Some people may not care for him, but he is far from a crackpot.

There are plenty of accomplished academics and popular teachers. That's not what this thread is about though. What is a core idea or concept from his corpus of scholarship that makes him stand out as a thinker above his peers?

I'd compare him to Dale Carnegie, except he's also an academic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jordan Peterson

Yes, he’s an important thinker for incels

If you really think this, I am fairly certain that you have not heard more than a 20-second clip of his thoughts.
A very small part of his focus at one time was in helping lost young men find meaning in their lives and in trying to figure out why so many were feeling so lost and as if their lives were lacking in direction or meaning as compared to former generations. And he has helped many young men turn their lives around by guiding them on a path toward responsibility, accountability, and purpose.

But he covers so many more topics in his clinical research and body of work. He’s a highly educated, widely published, bright scholar in his field (and this was the case long before he started trending about five years ago in YouTube for challenging Canadian law that was seeking to compel speech. (He was honestly questioning why any law should be made that was requiring someone to say a certain thing rather than just choose to not say the thing or not address it at all. In that particular case, it happened to be a law requiring someone to address someone by their preferred pronouns, with criminal penalties attached if one declined to do this. And his point was “I’m happy to do this to be polite in society, but the idea that anyone is required to address anyone in ANY particular way under threat of violation of the law is unprecedented and tyrannical. Why would we want government to make such a law?” Suddenly, from that, he was branded as anti-trans and anti-liberal.
And this made him re-think a lot of the ideas help by so-called liberals who, it turns out, are maybe not so liberal anymore.

He's not really know for anything he did prior to 5 years ago or whenever it was. It's not like he was a known quantity before then.

He may not have been widely known to the general public prior to the publicity around his resistance to that particular Canadian law, but Peterson was an accomplished academic and a popular teacher at the University of Toronto and Harvard. Some people may not care for him, but he is far from a crackpot.

There are plenty of accomplished academics and popular teachers. That's not what this thread is about though. What is a core idea or concept from his corpus of scholarship that makes him stand out as a thinker above his peers?

I'd compare him to Dale Carnegie, except he's also an academic

I mean, you didn't answer the question.

I think Robert Greene is the contemporary in the lane of the Dale Carnegies and Napoleon Hills. Is 12 Rules supposed to be Peterson's How to Win Friends?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Ibram X Kendi will be remembered as a popular political scholar who successfully sold a well-meaning but unproven theory on how to end racism. He will be remembered for both the concept's failure and worse, its further polarization of a society. And I say this as someone who's been fighting racism for almost 40 years now.

He will be remembered as a grifter who produced zero scholarly work from a $40 million endowment, laid off most of his staff and now cannot account for spending of the dollars.

This. Actually he won’t be remembered at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Ibram X Kendi will be remembered as a popular political scholar who successfully sold a well-meaning but unproven theory on how to end racism. He will be remembered for both the concept's failure and worse, its further polarization of a society. And I say this as someone who's been fighting racism for almost 40 years now.

He will be remembered as a grifter who produced zero scholarly work from a $40 million endowment, laid off most of his staff and now cannot account for spending of the dollars.

this

[Anonymous]

Nassim Taleb, Richard Dawkins, John Ionnides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heather Cox Richardson

Jamie Raskin

+1 Jamie Raskin. So sad about his health and his son. He's got grit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Heather Cox Richardson

Jamie Raskin

+1 Jamie Raskin.

He's smart AF, and not just by the standards of Congress in 2023.

[Anonymous]

Robert Sapolsky
Bill McKibben
Richard Thaler

[Anonymous]

Paul Krugman
Sam Harris
Yuval Noah Harari
Even though I do not care for him, Elon Musk
Robert Sapolsky
I don't care about Ezra Klein, but he is having a moment for sure
Tom Friedman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Paul Krugman
Sam Harris
Yuval Noah Harari
Even though I do not care for him, Elon Musk
Robert Sapolsky
I don't care about Ezra Klein, but he is having a moment for sure
Tom Friedman

Paul Krugman!? You destroyed any legitimacy by mentioning his name. He of the so-called "transitionary inflation" fame.

I'd concur with earlier poster that Sowell is probably the one name that will survive into the ages. Most of the names mentioned on here are self-important hacks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paul Krugman
Sam Harris
Yuval Noah Harari
Even though I do not care for him, Elon Musk
Robert Sapolsky
I don't care about Ezra Klein, but he is having a moment for sure
Tom Friedman

Paul Krugman!? You destroyed any legitimacy by mentioning his name. He of the so-called "transitionary inflation" fame.

I'd concur with earlier poster that Sowell is probably the one name that will survive into the ages. Most of the names mentioned on here are self-important hacks.

What would you say is Sowell's major contribution?

[Anonymous]

Joe Rogen for sure

[Anonymous]

Adrienne Maree Brown

[Anonymous]

Yascha Mounk

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adrienne Maree Brown

In no particular order, and of course these are polarizing but they are certainly influential:

Elon Musk
Greta Thunberg
AOC
Oprah Winfrey
Mark Zuckerberg