So, what do you make of the video? If you would like a monthly degrowth and postcapitalism reading list and other goodies, head over to: www.patreon.com/nowtopia
0:50 This is how we’re going to characterize his absence from public life? You make it sound like he was attending AA meetings or something instead of needing to be hospitalized for months at a time to detox from a drug that he was taking as prescribed.
@@nowtopia Then why’d you mention it at all? You could’ve just not said anything and when on with what you wanted to say about degrowth. If you bring it up, be fair about it.
"Degrowth" as if the English vocabulary didn't include words such as down sizing, arrested development, reductive economics and the like. The idea is as thought out as the word invented to describe it: It's an absolute miracle if you can get 10 people to work together, much less thousands of small 'independent self governing units' that by some magic will all agree on what 'sustainable' means.
@@nowtopia Yes, but the underlying question that empowers all this collaboration is 'what's in it for me?' Profit enables compromises that otherwise won't exist.
@@MrVohveliI subscribe more to a perspective that sees the profit motive as a minor element in all of human behaviour (given how much of the world is made up of care work, non-monetised labour etc)
Thanks you did a great job here! While it is unfortunate that degrowth is so grossly misrepresented, I'm also happy that it is spoken about by people with a big following. Hopefully some of them, unlike Peterson, will feel drawn to actually do a bit of research on the topic.
Thanks for the comment! Appreciate the sentiment. I think we are seeing in the French elections these last couple of days that there can be a widespread appeal to sufficiency and post-productivism. Just need to keep talking and acting
Mr. Petersen seems A. to thrive on simple messages B. Be more interested in venting his opinions than take the time to research C. More prone to criticizing than coming up with solutions D. Outright dishonest, because he just assumes dark motives (“they want to kill poor people”) instead of good intentions. A public “intellectual” of the common, modern and toxic kind. I really like the calm way you engage with his opinions - and the mentioning of academic papers. The latter helps me to dig deeper.
Exactly, I think it says a lot about how degraded the idea of public intellectual is that he is even counted in that category! One could easily respond with similar hyperbole and simplicity, but I prefer the contrast of conversation and calm dialogue, versus his toxicity. Was tempted not to give him attention of course, but thought it still might be useful to see where these ideas are going and how they're being misinterpreted...
A big problem with Peterson is that he uses a language that makes it extra difficult to understand what he means, especially for us non-native English speakers. But generally speaking, Peterson is right. That he assumes dark motives is because it is the only way to explain the behavior, especially among left-wing activists. When the ideas do not have or will not have the effect that the proponents say. And when they continue to advocate it when there is evidence that it produces the opposite effect, one must assume that the motive is something else. The fact that he rarely has his own solutions is a reasonable criticism of him, but on the other hand it is just as important to stop ideas that are bad. One bad idea is enough to destroy many good ones.
The last time I heard Peterson he interviewed Dennis McKenna and he was wonderful, mellow, and asked intelligent, empathic questions. Here, I was disappointed in his lack of vision and seemingly willful misinterpretation. Peterson doesn't even follow the data: humans evolved thus far through the rather amazing ability to cooperate to a high degree. He can't even seem to envision motivations that aren't totalitarian or economic (04:52) when research demonstrates that intrinsic incentives -- not extrinsic carrots and sticks, are what motivate the majority and most meaningful of human behavior. I loved your solutions at 07:26. The narration was beautiful as always. Perhaps it was a design decision, but please consider increasing your relative volume. If I turned you up, I had to turn down Peterson. Wonderful film. Thank you :)
Yes, he's become an easy subject of mockery online but I wouldn't say he's never been insightful. Definitely have to handle him with care, though. And yes, when it comes to motivation, unfortunately he can't seem to think beyond a dog-eat-dog vision of sociality (I guess that's his obsession with lobster hierarchies!). Imagine all the psychology courses repeating that nonsense, while ignoring all evidence on mutualism and cooperation. Anyway, glad you appreciated the turn to solutions towards the end, and will take on board the note about the volume levels. At some point I need to invest in a better mic and headphones!
I'm yet to see any criticisms of degrowth where the person making the critique actually had a proper understanding of what degrowth is. And I don't mean they need to spend hours pouring over degrowth literature. It is strawman arguments that 5 minutes spent googling would easily dismiss. It's not a complicated idea after all.
Yes, I think in the debates between degrowthers and eco-socialists there has at least been more meaningful debate. For instance: monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/degrowth-and-socialism-notes-on-some-critical-junctures/
2:55 Surely you are aware that this is not the case in developing countries. Population decrease is an issue solely associated (as far as I know) with rich post-industrial countries like Korea, Japan, western Europe, etc.
It is the case though that this trend is quickly spreading around the world as these developing countries become more wealthy. At 2:39 is the nice graphic that shows how populations are expected to stabilize in the near future.
Yes, exactly, this is a global trend. For some it's a nightmare, as it is hard to run a ponzi scheme growth-based economy with an aging population -- but perhaps it's just an opportunity to rethink the dependencies of our economy
@@jackbrons4904 I don't think that graph shows accurately the complexity of global population development which is far from linear or evenly distributed in every country. Also, I don't think there is any evidence showing that the stark population growth in India and parts of Africa is going to slow down besides from hypothetical projections.
@@nowtopia I think for most it's a nightmare regarding the impending collapse of social welfare and generational retirement pension systems. Basically, every part of society is affected by population decrease, not only growth-based sectors of the economy. Some dependencies also result from the fact that medical care is non-scaleable (yet).
I went into this video wanting to hear more thoughts about degrowth, but there weren't any arguement that held water as far as giving me a reason to support degrowth. I appreciate the discourse on the subject, but I still think degrowth is a bad plan. Thank you, keep up the discussion!
Thanks for your comment. If you look around the channel there are lots of links, videos and reading recommendations on the topic. It's a work-in-progress, but this video was just a very short intervention to highlight what Peterson has been saying
"Abundance in collective goods while limiting frivolous or harmful material throughput." hi - I'm a "Bright Green" climate activist trying to understand the economic and social justice issues that could unintentionally spring up from an intentional degrowth policy. I'm pro-renewables, pro-Ecocities / New Urbanism, pro-educating and empowering little girls in developing nations to encourage the worldwide demographic population transition to occur earlier and faster and get us down to maybe 6 billion by 2100 (Earth 4 All model - sister organisation to Club of Rome.) But I'm quite nervous about Degrowth at the moment - and can barely understand modern economics anyway. I'm trying to understand what the growth imperatives are - and from what I can see the main one is the Corporation and reporting to shareholders MUST have a perception of growth and profit or the almighty shareholder might not be happy. But as for money creation and the 'debt based exponential money growth imperative' pushed by the likes of Christ Martenson etc? I'm just not sure the economy works like that. I'm also trying to get my head around MMT and other basic economics. LET ALONE the huge challenge future economists are going to face when they hit the other side of 2050 and the population starts to shrink by a billion every 15 years or so! WOW! But Degrowth? I'm just not sure. Wouldn't a world of Worker Co-ops instead of Corporations solve half the growth imperative - especially as we green up energy and recycling and encourage ecocity growth? Universal healthcare and basic housing and free education and food guarantees - I'm for all that. I'm quite left. But I'm not sure about intentional Degrowth. What are the unintended consequences? How do we SELL it to people?
Thanks for this interesting and open-minded comment. Have you looked around at other degrowth-related videos on the channel? I think some part of a response can be found in the literatures and articles pointed to there. On the growth imperative -- I think there are multiple sources that lead to growth dependencies and lock in, ranging from more structural ones which you mention, to more socially embedded ones (status competition, psychology, ). A lot of energy is spent trying to find the one true cause of growth imperatives but that doesn't really interest me that much. I should do a video on it though, come to think of it! And yes, it's right that you should be skeptical about unintended side effects. Have a look at this: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800921002743 We should definitely be aware that complex processes are currently being unleashed that will be hard to deal with. Degrowth is all about figuring out a better path in that complexity. A world populated by things like worker coops would go a long way towards removing any growth dependency, I entirely agree. Currently working on a book on a similar topic to that.
First, I don't care what Peterson talks about, what irritates me are your arguments in this video. He may be fully wrong, but you also are massively biased. Is degrowth anti-poor? Let me ask you this, straight from the video: The people who met at Davos to talk about climate, could they not have held it as an online meeting with a fraction of cost and pollution? Are these people not the wealthy and powerful who sat in the positions of power for the last decades? Who's quality of life does degrade more in a falling economy, that of the richest people or that of the already struggling? Sure, the rich *could* sacrifice their wealth, but they did not in the past and will not do so willingly in the future. At least not enough to make a difference. Overpopulation is an iffy thing, some populations are massively growing, others are dying and next to none are stable at the moment. So let's assume that you have a point there. What ticks me off, is that you bring in “real environmental and economic inequalities”. That should not be a concern of degrowth. The environment and personal circumstances are unequal as can be, and we need to address that. But not under the same frame as trying to build a sustainable society. Society was unfair and unequal but perfectly sustainable until ~2000 years ago, a bit more or less depending on where. Those are not causally linked. On Authoritarianism, how do you think can a policy that restricts some people, will be enforced? There are egoistical people in the world, heck about 1% has no and about 5% heavily limited empathy (psychopathy, sociopathy and border cases that do not strictly fulfill the medical condition but still are “restricted”). They will have to be forced, or they will continue as in the past. Aside from that, what about the people who “just do not want"? Do they lose their right to personal freedom, for standing on the wrong side of history? Sounds dangerous. Many people will not care until they directly feel the consequences. "...shifted back towards coal and gas ... but this is more based on meeting the requirements of a growth-based economy..." That's plain wrong. Either you are ill-informed or lying there. Germany is (as of my knowledge) the only nation who has done this move, and the decision makes no economic sense. Except maybe for the coal and gas suppliers. The German economy took a massive hit from rising energy costs and did generally correlate well with energy prices. Cheap energy (nuclear) is the purely economic decision. Leaving nuclear was an ideological decision. One may like it or not, that's open to debate. But it was generally understood, that quitting nuclear was not economical. Is Peterson's last statement really a straw man? Are you really convinced that no significant portion of humanity will have to reduce their quality of life for degrowth? If so, you must be very optimistic about technology. It is essentially a problem about energy. Fossil fuels have properties that are not achievable to alternatives sources of energy that we currently explore. Even if nuclear fusion is commercially available tomorrow, it would be challenging to store, to transport and the energy density needed for many means of transportations is currently just not achievable (at reasonable explosion risk). Who will bear the cost of that? Those in power or those without? I really try to like your videos, I endorse the idea of searching for a good, sustainable future for everyone. But sadly, I find myself contradicting most of the things you say, even while sharing the hope for a similar outcome. What I want to criticize are not the ideas, but the ways you propagate them.
Thanks for this comment! You raise a lot of important debates and points for discussion. I want to do justice to it, so will come back when I have a bit more time to respond
OK, so I'll go point by point: - 'Sure, the rich could sacrifice their wealth, but they did not in the past and will not do so willingly in the future. At least not enough to make a difference.' I agree with your first paragraph. The rich will not sacrifice wealth willingly, and Davos is a meaningless facade, if not a malevolent gathering (I'm open to persuasion on the latter). - 'Society was unfair and unequal but perfectly sustainable until ~2000 years ago, a bit more or less depending on where. Those are not causally linked.' There is a strong link in contemporary society between inequality and sustainability (Murray Bookchin is great on this, but plenty of more contemporary empirical research there too). And vice versa, tackling one will often lead to improvements in the other. I don't see the point of envisioning a sustainable society that continues to exploit people. If I'm misunderstanding your point here, let me know. - 'how do you think can a policy that restricts some people, will be enforced? There are egoistical people in the world, heck about 1% has no and about 5% heavily limited empathy (psychopathy, sociopathy and border cases that do not strictly fulfill the medical condition but still are “restricted”).' All societies throughout history have had to find ways to deal with these questions, whether of criminality, free riders etc. Being inspired by Kropotkin and ideas around mutualism in general, I suppose I recognise that many societies have found non-hierarchical ways to deal with limits and control throughout history (check out The Dawn of Everything). Many of us live in particularly atomised and individualised societies, compared to the historical average. That probably won't stay that way, with the ecological disruptions coming. Plus, if we get into specifics, there are interesting democratic tools we can use to encourage discussion and dialogue on the limits of possibility, without it being all about coercion... - 'Cheap energy (nuclear) is the purely economic decision.' That is the opposite of most analyses I've seen. Nuclear is immensely uneconomical in most cases and has other serious drawbacks that have never convinced me to see it as 'cheap' and 'green' - 'Are you really convinced that no significant portion of humanity will have to reduce their quality of life for degrowth?' My view on this doesn't come from techno-optimism. The opposite perhaps. But yes, this is the question -- we don't know how things are going to pan out. Unfortunately, we are in the midst of an ecological crisis that doesn't give us much wiggle room to ponder. There are enough indications for me (including the literature linked in the description of this video), that tackling capitalism and its respective inequities will provide breathing room for improving lives. I have lived through so much precarity in my few decades on this planet -- I'm not sure what we have to lose. - 'I really try to like your videos, I endorse the idea of searching for a good, sustainable future for everyone.' Thanks for trying! I'm just on a journey of curiosity, like you, so this will evolve. Keep challenging me and we can learn together
As an engineer and scientist (2 different mantles that compliment eachother), I'm for sure degrowth as stated now will destroy societies, at least the technological part. Tech is already rapidly degrading and barely manageable. If this economic philosophy requires new technology for it to succeed, then I would urge that economist or philosopher to become an engineer and inventor to make their own tech that they require. The bottleneck for technological developments and maintenance is people. For every scientist there are 1000s of non scientists dictating how science should work. This is bad for science. Non-engineer decide which technology should be wide scale adopted. Ergo, you got idiots leading the charge. While the actual boots on the ground have to work with both hands and legs tied behind their back. Karl Marx his Utopia was also fully reliant on the idea that some genius somewhere will invent all the tech that his Utopia requires. But science and engineering is extremely hard to do when you're hungry and barely scraping by. You don't first destroy and then think of how to replace the thing. This is again, non-scientific and non-technical philosophy. If you want to save the world, learn actual science. I want you to be deep into mathematics and know the physics. From entropy to quantum. Relying on Quantum Computers for your solution? Show me your fully function quantum computer. Everybody can think of dumb ideas. Don't waste smart brains of stupid ideas. Maybe let the smart brains come with the smart ideas and don't stick your nose in world changing and future deciding things. This would disqualify all of Davos and the G gatherings from talking about these matter. Same for the media and your politicians. These are all non-scientists and non-techies. These people are "talkers" their work is to talk and convince people of whatever they are paid to talk about. Scientists barely talk, they are shunned into silence by their friends and family. If you want a scientist to talk, you have to ask them a question first. Peterson is an exception, and is very chatty 😋. My uncle has build the climate satellites for ESA. His and his colleagues view on the climate is radically different than the commonplace view that has fabricated by politicians and the media. The difference is that they can show you the mathematics. But what is a more compelling argument for a layman: "Scribbles on a piece of paper" or "Emotional manipulative rethoric and shaming tactics"? The planet and climate is a Complex System (technical term) just like your body and brain. Would you trust your average politcians or news anchor to do surgery on your brain? Why would you trust them with literally the future of the entire planet and it's ecosystem? Brains are less complex, brain surgery is easy and the unintended consequences are known. So just because this is all extremely novel and experimental, we should just trust professional talkers to fix it all with their speech...
I read your first paragraph, and I don't understand the connection. It's not like the people at Davos are for degrowth, so what is it? You act like he defended the Davos people
Degrowth is coming. Either we can try to manage the process or we can ignore the issue and let it happen spontaneously. The latter is what people like Peterson want. And if he thinks managed degrowth is bad then he's really not going to like the consequences of it happening of its own accord.
the problem is if you want a 2024 society you need alot of people, it is not just the rich that needs it, in fact the rich always get's away from the problems of the world, they can just take their money and assets and go somewhere else, the poor cannot
if you want a standard of living of a modern western society. I'am btw not against degrowth but i also realise that it means living a poorer and simpler life and econemy.@@nowtopia
@@nowtopia you've picked up the excerpts mid-argument. You skipped the parts where he lays out why poverty has fallen, how women have been empowered, the historical record of ecological husbandry, etc. Try addressing his actual argument instead of presenting a straw man by editing.
@@TomS-ce8hi I appreciate the reply. Here's an analogy: By choosing to omit essential premises it's like you've pointed to a 2-legged stool. All I can tell you is JBP has more legs to his stool; I'm not arguing it doesn't wobble. Yet, with your approach you obscure the question instead of shedding light.
I have not heard a single argument for degrowth which has any merit; it's purely theoretical and seems to have only very negative results when exercised in reality.
Where have you seen 'negative results when exercised in reality'? There are entire books written on the topic that surely include merit. In particular, I feel taking a sufficiency-based rather than a growth-based approach ultimately makes environmental protection much easier.
@@nowtopia How drops in growth results in more deaths in population. Redistribution of wealth can't overcome that in the long term as it causes more drops in growth and eventually there's not much left to redistribute.
I don't think we end up with this zero-sum game...we will continue creating 'wealth' (hopefully in a regenerative way that increases ecological abundance for human and non-human), but it will simply be distributed by other mechanisms than the market and profit. The dependence on growth that you are assuming is a relatively new idea, and discounted by lots of great work on steady-state and post-growth economies
@firstsecond9569 Infinite economic growth is physically impossible, and I don't understand that people can't understand that. There will be global famine this century because of the consequences of industry. Inorganic fertilizer is going to be depleted, for instance.
@@nowtopia All I know is, I recently retired. Worked 45 years, paid 65% of what I made for 'redistribution', and hopefully die before I run out of money. Also mostly was self employed so no pensions. Sorry bud, there are no money trees.
I think what people forget when saying redistribution is bad, is how little current redistributive efforts touch the very wealthy, aka the capitalist class, those that don't have to work for a living. We have the resources to all live at a very decent standard of living, but the ten-millionaires and above have way way more than makes sense in any way
Peterson is mostly right. But he should learn to speak so that people understand. One should not have to learn everything from other sources to understand what he means.
@@nowtopia That the left is willing to sacrifice the poor to do things that look good for nature. Their policies create more poverty. That it takes total authoritarianism to push the policy through. And the environmental activists' ideas are counter-productive.
TL;DR: You didn't actually counter any of Peterson's arguments here other than saying "that's not what degrowth means". There seems to be no applicable solution as you couldn't name even one. Redistribution of wealth is not what I associate with the degrowth agenda since this is already being done in most democratic societies and actually encourages growth (especially for poorer people). 2:55 "... shift towards preferring smaller families." I think this is partially the case because we have a whole system built on the presupposition that men and women both need to aspire to enter the work force and value career more than family. I think many women have actually been led astray by feminism to think the role of a mother is not a strong, valuable, and powerful role in society but instead been told to become more of an economic being than a social one and prioritize career. Many women realize this too late in their lives that they wish they have had children. I don't think this is a natural occurring trend at all 4:30 I think you left out a concrete explanation of how those "democratic" entities would manifest. The goal seems to be an implementation of limits which is exactly what Peterson criticizes. Is there a video where you elaborate on that issue specifically? 5:43 This is not based on the requirements of a growth based economy since the supplements are needed to reach the same levels of energy usage without nuclear. Not switching to any alternative source of energy production would lead to what Peterson has said: death of the poor. Because they are more reliant on the functioning and permanent distribution of energy to their homes than rich people are. Without that energy they would either freeze or starve. 6:39 You said this is a strawman argument but didn't elaborate what the strategy of degrowth is in regards to developing countries, other than "we need to discuss them". That seems to mean that there is no strategy and no applicable solution other than what Peterson has pointed out, that an increase in energy usage by developing countries is not wanted by proponents of degrowth, which effectively would keep any civilization at their current level of technological development. 6:49 What do you mean with "alienating mode of existing prevalent in the West"? 7:02 What are those "visions of appropriate technology and sustainable housing ... and rich communal living"? This all sounds like a pipe dream. How is this actually going to be implemented without a Communist dictatorship that tells people where and how to live?
There is a tonne of research on how to redistribute wealth without having blowback in terms of ecological impacts and subsequent consumption. It's a tricky field but not as closed or non-existent a discussion as you're making out, and 100% an important part of the post-growth discussion. The debate on women and feminism is an interesting one, and will vary depending on culture and location. But ultimately, I would probably agree with you more than you think on this one. Exploration of democratic entities is scattered through various videos, but could certainly be concentrated on in a future video. I'd recommend exploring some of the literature on this, e.g. journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3197/096327113X13581561725239 There is a complex debate out there (and the subject of a future video) around how degrowth relates to global north vs. global south. Ultimately, instead of this assumption of deprivation and decline, there is much scope for things like 'contraction and convergence' where the global south get to increase energy use where needed, and the north tackles equitably downshifts. But ultimately it's important to see what the energy is being used for in the first place -- on this, I think there is a lot more scope for abundance within ecological limits (shifting from private automobiles to public transit and cycling, for instance). On alienation, there is a lot I could point you toward, but have a look at the critiques of capitalism in The Future is Degrowth for an extended exploration. We don't need a communist dictatorship. I personally believe in the potential for nested and intersecting scales of economic democracy and commoning. 2 billion people on the planet rely on commons for their livelihoods, 12% of humanity are members of cooperatives. There are loads of alternatives if we're willing to look for it. Could talk a lot more but thanks for taking an interest, even if you disagree!
Why would the 'inherent' nature of poor people be any different from the wealthy? And I agree, there should be fewer poor people! That's why we need to rethink the inequalities of our economy
He probably understands degrowth, but it does not go well with his right wing beliefs. He by the way does care about the poor.. With desperate people gone, who else is going to vote fascist? By the way: is it not splendid that a degree in psychology grants one the knowledge of everything?
Cars, firearms, enormous ammounts of meat consumption, probably even private ownership in general are all contributing to a less hospitable society and even a hostile planet. People like Peterson could not care less. They hope not to witness the hell they are facilitating😑 My prediction is this man will take his own life, rather than facing reality.
So, what do you make of the video?
If you would like a monthly degrowth and postcapitalism reading list and other goodies, head over to: www.patreon.com/nowtopia
0:50 This is how we’re going to characterize his absence from public life? You make it sound like he was attending AA meetings or something instead of needing to be hospitalized for months at a time to detox from a drug that he was taking as prescribed.
@@davidbird3438I didn't see the relevance of delving into his personal life. It doesn't really interest me.
@@nowtopia Then why’d you mention it at all? You could’ve just not said anything and when on with what you wanted to say about degrowth. If you bring it up, be fair about it.
Truly appreciate the thoughtful video.
Ah thanks for calling by and commenting! Hope to see you around again :)
"Degrowth" as if the English vocabulary didn't include words such as down sizing, arrested development, reductive economics and the like. The idea is as thought out as the word invented to describe it:
It's an absolute miracle if you can get 10 people to work together, much less thousands of small 'independent self governing units' that by some magic will all agree on what 'sustainable' means.
I think you're underestimating what is possible. Humans collaborate on various scales, large and small, all the time.
@@nowtopia Yes, but the underlying question that empowers all this collaboration is 'what's in it for me?' Profit enables compromises that otherwise won't exist.
@@MrVohveliI subscribe more to a perspective that sees the profit motive as a minor element in all of human behaviour (given how much of the world is made up of care work, non-monetised labour etc)
Thanks you did a great job here! While it is unfortunate that degrowth is so grossly misrepresented, I'm also happy that it is spoken about by people with a big following. Hopefully some of them, unlike Peterson, will feel drawn to actually do a bit of research on the topic.
Thanks for the comment! Appreciate the sentiment. I think we are seeing in the French elections these last couple of days that there can be a widespread appeal to sufficiency and post-productivism. Just need to keep talking and acting
Mr. Petersen seems A. to thrive on simple messages B. Be more interested in venting his opinions than take the time to research C. More prone to criticizing than coming up with solutions D. Outright dishonest, because he just assumes dark motives (“they want to kill poor people”) instead of good intentions. A public “intellectual” of the common, modern and toxic kind.
I really like the calm way you engage with his opinions - and the mentioning of academic papers. The latter helps me to dig deeper.
Exactly, I think it says a lot about how degraded the idea of public intellectual is that he is even counted in that category!
One could easily respond with similar hyperbole and simplicity, but I prefer the contrast of conversation and calm dialogue, versus his toxicity. Was tempted not to give him attention of course, but thought it still might be useful to see where these ideas are going and how they're being misinterpreted...
A big problem with Peterson is that he uses a language that makes it extra difficult to understand what he means, especially for us non-native English speakers.
But generally speaking, Peterson is right.
That he assumes dark motives is because it is the only way to explain the behavior, especially among left-wing activists. When the ideas do not have or will not have the effect that the proponents say. And when they continue to advocate it when there is evidence that it produces the opposite effect, one must assume that the motive is something else.
The fact that he rarely has his own solutions is a reasonable criticism of him, but on the other hand it is just as important to stop ideas that are bad. One bad idea is enough to destroy many good ones.
You could make a video series titled "Jordan Peterson Doesn't Understand X" and you wouldn't run out of video content in your lifetime.
ha I'm sure you're right. Just wanted to take one tiny crumb of that ignorance, as it relates to this channel
The last time I heard Peterson he interviewed Dennis McKenna and he was wonderful, mellow, and asked intelligent, empathic questions. Here, I was disappointed in his lack of vision and seemingly willful misinterpretation.
Peterson doesn't even follow the data: humans evolved thus far through the rather amazing ability to cooperate to a high degree. He can't even seem to envision motivations that aren't totalitarian or economic (04:52) when research demonstrates that intrinsic incentives -- not extrinsic carrots and sticks, are what motivate the majority and most meaningful of human behavior.
I loved your solutions at 07:26. The narration was beautiful as always. Perhaps it was a design decision, but please consider increasing your relative volume. If I turned you up, I had to turn down Peterson.
Wonderful film. Thank you :)
Yes, he's become an easy subject of mockery online but I wouldn't say he's never been insightful. Definitely have to handle him with care, though.
And yes, when it comes to motivation, unfortunately he can't seem to think beyond a dog-eat-dog vision of sociality (I guess that's his obsession with lobster hierarchies!). Imagine all the psychology courses repeating that nonsense, while ignoring all evidence on mutualism and cooperation.
Anyway, glad you appreciated the turn to solutions towards the end, and will take on board the note about the volume levels. At some point I need to invest in a better mic and headphones!
I'm yet to see any criticisms of degrowth where the person making the critique actually had a proper understanding of what degrowth is. And I don't mean they need to spend hours pouring over degrowth literature. It is strawman arguments that 5 minutes spent googling would easily dismiss. It's not a complicated idea after all.
Yes, I think in the debates between degrowthers and eco-socialists there has at least been more meaningful debate. For instance: monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/degrowth-and-socialism-notes-on-some-critical-junctures/
Right. It’s easy. You google 5 minutes. Peterson is stupid?
Btw: Mr. Peterson looks like Doctor House, Las Vegas Version 😂
2:55 Surely you are aware that this is not the case in developing countries. Population decrease is an issue solely associated (as far as I know) with rich post-industrial countries like Korea, Japan, western Europe, etc.
It is the case though that this trend is quickly spreading around the world as these developing countries become more wealthy. At 2:39 is the nice graphic that shows how populations are expected to stabilize in the near future.
Yes, exactly, this is a global trend. For some it's a nightmare, as it is hard to run a ponzi scheme growth-based economy with an aging population -- but perhaps it's just an opportunity to rethink the dependencies of our economy
@@jackbrons4904 I don't think that graph shows accurately the complexity of global population development which is far from linear or evenly distributed in every country. Also, I don't think there is any evidence showing that the stark population growth in India and parts of Africa is going to slow down besides from hypothetical projections.
@@nowtopia I think for most it's a nightmare regarding the impending collapse of social welfare and generational retirement pension systems. Basically, every part of society is affected by population decrease, not only growth-based sectors of the economy. Some dependencies also result from the fact that medical care is non-scaleable (yet).
I went into this video wanting to hear more thoughts about degrowth, but there weren't any arguement that held water as far as giving me a reason to support degrowth. I appreciate the discourse on the subject, but I still think degrowth is a bad plan. Thank you, keep up the discussion!
Not in a 5 minutes video
Thanks for your comment. If you look around the channel there are lots of links, videos and reading recommendations on the topic. It's a work-in-progress, but this video was just a very short intervention to highlight what Peterson has been saying
"Abundance in collective goods while limiting frivolous or harmful material throughput." hi - I'm a "Bright Green" climate activist trying to understand the economic and social justice issues that could unintentionally spring up from an intentional degrowth policy. I'm pro-renewables, pro-Ecocities / New Urbanism, pro-educating and empowering little girls in developing nations to encourage the worldwide demographic population transition to occur earlier and faster and get us down to maybe 6 billion by 2100 (Earth 4 All model - sister organisation to Club of Rome.) But I'm quite nervous about Degrowth at the moment - and can barely understand modern economics anyway. I'm trying to understand what the growth imperatives are - and from what I can see the main one is the Corporation and reporting to shareholders MUST have a perception of growth and profit or the almighty shareholder might not be happy. But as for money creation and the 'debt based exponential money growth imperative' pushed by the likes of Christ Martenson etc? I'm just not sure the economy works like that. I'm also trying to get my head around MMT and other basic economics. LET ALONE the huge challenge future economists are going to face when they hit the other side of 2050 and the population starts to shrink by a billion every 15 years or so! WOW! But Degrowth? I'm just not sure. Wouldn't a world of Worker Co-ops instead of Corporations solve half the growth imperative - especially as we green up energy and recycling and encourage ecocity growth? Universal healthcare and basic housing and free education and food guarantees - I'm for all that. I'm quite left. But I'm not sure about intentional Degrowth. What are the unintended consequences? How do we SELL it to people?
Thanks for this interesting and open-minded comment. Have you looked around at other degrowth-related videos on the channel? I think some part of a response can be found in the literatures and articles pointed to there.
On the growth imperative -- I think there are multiple sources that lead to growth dependencies and lock in, ranging from more structural ones which you mention, to more socially embedded ones (status competition, psychology, ). A lot of energy is spent trying to find the one true cause of growth imperatives but that doesn't really interest me that much. I should do a video on it though, come to think of it!
And yes, it's right that you should be skeptical about unintended side effects. Have a look at this: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800921002743 We should definitely be aware that complex processes are currently being unleashed that will be hard to deal with. Degrowth is all about figuring out a better path in that complexity.
A world populated by things like worker coops would go a long way towards removing any growth dependency, I entirely agree. Currently working on a book on a similar topic to that.
you take him waaay to seriously. look at his jacket!
ha yes, very questionable sartorial choices...
First, I don't care what Peterson talks about, what irritates me are your arguments in this video. He may be fully wrong, but you also are massively biased.
Is degrowth anti-poor? Let me ask you this, straight from the video: The people who met at Davos to talk about climate, could they not have held it as an online meeting with a fraction of cost and pollution? Are these people not the wealthy and powerful who sat in the positions of power for the last decades?
Who's quality of life does degrade more in a falling economy, that of the richest people or that of the already struggling? Sure, the rich *could* sacrifice their wealth, but they did not in the past and will not do so willingly in the future. At least not enough to make a difference.
Overpopulation is an iffy thing, some populations are massively growing, others are dying and next to none are stable at the moment. So let's assume that you have a point there.
What ticks me off, is that you bring in “real environmental and economic inequalities”. That should not be a concern of degrowth. The environment and personal circumstances are unequal as can be, and we need to address that. But not under the same frame as trying to build a sustainable society. Society was unfair and unequal but perfectly sustainable until ~2000 years ago, a bit more or less depending on where. Those are not causally linked.
On Authoritarianism, how do you think can a policy that restricts some people, will be enforced? There are egoistical people in the world, heck about 1% has no and about 5% heavily limited empathy (psychopathy, sociopathy and border cases that do not strictly fulfill the medical condition but still are “restricted”). They will have to be forced, or they will continue as in the past. Aside from that, what about the people who “just do not want"? Do they lose their right to personal freedom, for standing on the wrong side of history? Sounds dangerous.
Many people will not care until they directly feel the consequences.
"...shifted back towards coal and gas ... but this is more based on meeting the requirements of a growth-based economy..."
That's plain wrong. Either you are ill-informed or lying there. Germany is (as of my knowledge) the only nation who has done this move, and the decision makes no economic sense. Except maybe for the coal and gas suppliers. The German economy took a massive hit from rising energy costs and did generally correlate well with energy prices. Cheap energy (nuclear) is the purely economic decision. Leaving nuclear was an ideological decision. One may like it or not, that's open to debate. But it was generally understood, that quitting nuclear was not economical.
Is Peterson's last statement really a straw man? Are you really convinced that no significant portion of humanity will have to reduce their quality of life for degrowth? If so, you must be very optimistic about technology. It is essentially a problem about energy. Fossil fuels have properties that are not achievable to alternatives sources of energy that we currently explore. Even if nuclear fusion is commercially available tomorrow, it would be challenging to store, to transport and the energy density needed for many means of transportations is currently just not achievable (at reasonable explosion risk).
Who will bear the cost of that? Those in power or those without?
I really try to like your videos, I endorse the idea of searching for a good, sustainable future for everyone. But sadly, I find myself contradicting most of the things you say, even while sharing the hope for a similar outcome.
What I want to criticize are not the ideas, but the ways you propagate them.
Thanks for this comment! You raise a lot of important debates and points for discussion. I want to do justice to it, so will come back when I have a bit more time to respond
OK, so I'll go point by point:
- 'Sure, the rich could sacrifice their wealth, but they did not in the past and will not do so willingly in the future. At least not enough to make a difference.' I agree with your first paragraph. The rich will not sacrifice wealth willingly, and Davos is a meaningless facade, if not a malevolent gathering (I'm open to persuasion on the latter).
- 'Society was unfair and unequal but perfectly sustainable until ~2000 years ago, a bit more or less depending on where. Those are not causally linked.' There is a strong link in contemporary society between inequality and sustainability (Murray Bookchin is great on this, but plenty of more contemporary empirical research there too). And vice versa, tackling one will often lead to improvements in the other. I don't see the point of envisioning a sustainable society that continues to exploit people. If I'm misunderstanding your point here, let me know.
- 'how do you think can a policy that restricts some people, will be enforced? There are egoistical people in the world, heck about 1% has no and about 5% heavily limited empathy (psychopathy, sociopathy and border cases that do not strictly fulfill the medical condition but still are “restricted”).' All societies throughout history have had to find ways to deal with these questions, whether of criminality, free riders etc. Being inspired by Kropotkin and ideas around mutualism in general, I suppose I recognise that many societies have found non-hierarchical ways to deal with limits and control throughout history (check out The Dawn of Everything). Many of us live in particularly atomised and individualised societies, compared to the historical average. That probably won't stay that way, with the ecological disruptions coming. Plus, if we get into specifics, there are interesting democratic tools we can use to encourage discussion and dialogue on the limits of possibility, without it being all about coercion...
- 'Cheap energy (nuclear) is the purely economic decision.' That is the opposite of most analyses I've seen. Nuclear is immensely uneconomical in most cases and has other serious drawbacks that have never convinced me to see it as 'cheap' and 'green'
- 'Are you really convinced that no significant portion of humanity will have to reduce their quality of life for degrowth?' My view on this doesn't come from techno-optimism. The opposite perhaps. But yes, this is the question -- we don't know how things are going to pan out. Unfortunately, we are in the midst of an ecological crisis that doesn't give us much wiggle room to ponder. There are enough indications for me (including the literature linked in the description of this video), that tackling capitalism and its respective inequities will provide breathing room for improving lives. I have lived through so much precarity in my few decades on this planet -- I'm not sure what we have to lose.
- 'I really try to like your videos, I endorse the idea of searching for a good, sustainable future for everyone.' Thanks for trying! I'm just on a journey of curiosity, like you, so this will evolve. Keep challenging me and we can learn together
As an engineer and scientist (2 different mantles that compliment eachother), I'm for sure degrowth as stated now will destroy societies, at least the technological part. Tech is already rapidly degrading and barely manageable. If this economic philosophy requires new technology for it to succeed, then I would urge that economist or philosopher to become an engineer and inventor to make their own tech that they require.
The bottleneck for technological developments and maintenance is people. For every scientist there are 1000s of non scientists dictating how science should work. This is bad for science. Non-engineer decide which technology should be wide scale adopted. Ergo, you got idiots leading the charge. While the actual boots on the ground have to work with both hands and legs tied behind their back.
Karl Marx his Utopia was also fully reliant on the idea that some genius somewhere will invent all the tech that his Utopia requires. But science and engineering is extremely hard to do when you're hungry and barely scraping by.
You don't first destroy and then think of how to replace the thing. This is again, non-scientific and non-technical philosophy.
If you want to save the world, learn actual science. I want you to be deep into mathematics and know the physics. From entropy to quantum. Relying on Quantum Computers for your solution? Show me your fully function quantum computer. Everybody can think of dumb ideas. Don't waste smart brains of stupid ideas. Maybe let the smart brains come with the smart ideas and don't stick your nose in world changing and future deciding things. This would disqualify all of Davos and the G gatherings from talking about these matter. Same for the media and your politicians. These are all non-scientists and non-techies. These people are "talkers" their work is to talk and convince people of whatever they are paid to talk about. Scientists barely talk, they are shunned into silence by their friends and family. If you want a scientist to talk, you have to ask them a question first. Peterson is an exception, and is very chatty 😋.
My uncle has build the climate satellites for ESA. His and his colleagues view on the climate is radically different than the commonplace view that has fabricated by politicians and the media. The difference is that they can show you the mathematics. But what is a more compelling argument for a layman: "Scribbles on a piece of paper" or "Emotional manipulative rethoric and shaming tactics"?
The planet and climate is a Complex System (technical term) just like your body and brain. Would you trust your average politcians or news anchor to do surgery on your brain? Why would you trust them with literally the future of the entire planet and it's ecosystem? Brains are less complex, brain surgery is easy and the unintended consequences are known. So just because this is all extremely novel and experimental, we should just trust professional talkers to fix it all with their speech...
I read your first paragraph, and I don't understand the connection. It's not like the people at Davos are for degrowth, so what is it? You act like he defended the Davos people
Apparently Peterson doesn’t understand the concept of planetary boundaries.
Degrowth is coming. Either we can try to manage the process or we can ignore the issue and let it happen spontaneously. The latter is what people like Peterson want. And if he thinks managed degrowth is bad then he's really not going to like the consequences of it happening of its own accord.
Really nicely put!
Degrowth is happening out of sheer incompetence from the top. From the Incompetence crisis.
the problem is if you want a 2024 society you need alot of people, it is not just the rich that needs it, in fact the rich always get's away from the problems of the world, they can just take their money and assets and go somewhere else, the poor cannot
Thanks for the comment. Just for clarity -- what do you mean when you say 'if you want a 2024 society you need alot of people'?
if you want a standard of living of a modern western society. I'am btw not against degrowth but i also realise that it means living a poorer and simpler life and econemy.@@nowtopia
Did you misrepresent JBP out of ignorance or from malice?
Which part misrepresents him?
@@nowtopia you've picked up the excerpts mid-argument. You skipped the parts where he lays out why poverty has fallen, how women have been empowered, the historical record of ecological husbandry, etc. Try addressing his actual argument instead of presenting a straw man by editing.
@@TomS-ce8hi I appreciate the reply. Here's an analogy: By choosing to omit essential premises it's like you've pointed to a 2-legged stool. All I can tell you is JBP has more legs to his stool; I'm not arguing it doesn't wobble. Yet, with your approach you obscure the question instead of shedding light.
I have not heard a single argument for degrowth which has any merit; it's purely theoretical and seems to have only very negative results when exercised in reality.
Where have you seen 'negative results when exercised in reality'?
There are entire books written on the topic that surely include merit. In particular, I feel taking a sufficiency-based rather than a growth-based approach ultimately makes environmental protection much easier.
He understands what Degrowth is. As a Person from a developing nation I oppose degrowth.
While JP is being hyperbolic, I think it's the maker of this video that failed to understand JP's points
Which point do you think I have failed to understand?
@@nowtopia
How drops in growth results in more deaths in population. Redistribution of wealth can't overcome that in the long term as it causes more drops in growth and eventually there's not much left to redistribute.
I don't think we end up with this zero-sum game...we will continue creating 'wealth' (hopefully in a regenerative way that increases ecological abundance for human and non-human), but it will simply be distributed by other mechanisms than the market and profit. The dependence on growth that you are assuming is a relatively new idea, and discounted by lots of great work on steady-state and post-growth economies
@firstsecond9569 Infinite economic growth is physically impossible, and I don't understand that people can't understand that. There will be global famine this century because of the consequences of industry. Inorganic fertilizer is going to be depleted, for instance.
Degrowth's purpose is use less but what will happen is worse for the poorest.
Not if it's based on redistribution and equity
@@nowtopia All I know is, I recently retired. Worked 45 years, paid 65% of what I made for 'redistribution', and hopefully die before I run out of money. Also mostly was self employed so no pensions. Sorry bud, there are no money trees.
@@ronderuiter3298 65%?? Can I ask where? It sounds like you're a victim of capitalism with no real social net
I think what people forget when saying redistribution is bad, is how little current redistributive efforts touch the very wealthy, aka the capitalist class, those that don't have to work for a living. We have the resources to all live at a very decent standard of living, but the ten-millionaires and above have way way more than makes sense in any way
Probably the millionaires too
Commenting fer engagement lol
Responding for engagement!
Peterson is mostly right. But he should learn to speak so that people understand. One should not have to learn everything from other sources to understand what he means.
Which parts do you think he is right about?
@@nowtopia That the left is willing to sacrifice the poor to do things that look good for nature. Their policies create more poverty.
That it takes total authoritarianism to push the policy through.
And the environmental activists' ideas are counter-productive.
TL;DR: You didn't actually counter any of Peterson's arguments here other than saying "that's not what degrowth means". There seems to be no applicable solution as you couldn't name even one. Redistribution of wealth is not what I associate with the degrowth agenda since this is already being done in most democratic societies and actually encourages growth (especially for poorer people).
2:55 "... shift towards preferring smaller families." I think this is partially the case because we have a whole system built on the presupposition that men and women both need to aspire to enter the work force and value career more than family. I think many women have actually been led astray by feminism to think the role of a mother is not a strong, valuable, and powerful role in society but instead been told to become more of an economic being than a social one and prioritize career. Many women realize this too late in their lives that they wish they have had children. I don't think this is a natural occurring trend at all
4:30 I think you left out a concrete explanation of how those "democratic" entities would manifest. The goal seems to be an implementation of limits which is exactly what Peterson criticizes. Is there a video where you elaborate on that issue specifically?
5:43 This is not based on the requirements of a growth based economy since the supplements are needed to reach the same levels of energy usage without nuclear. Not switching to any alternative source of energy production would lead to what Peterson has said: death of the poor. Because they are more reliant on the functioning and permanent distribution of energy to their homes than rich people are. Without that energy they would either freeze or starve.
6:39 You said this is a strawman argument but didn't elaborate what the strategy of degrowth is in regards to developing countries, other than "we need to discuss them". That seems to mean that there is no strategy and no applicable solution other than what Peterson has pointed out, that an increase in energy usage by developing countries is not wanted by proponents of degrowth, which effectively would keep any civilization at their current level of technological development.
6:49 What do you mean with "alienating mode of existing prevalent in the West"?
7:02 What are those "visions of appropriate technology and sustainable housing ... and rich communal living"? This all sounds like a pipe dream. How is this actually going to be implemented without a Communist dictatorship that tells people where and how to live?
There is a tonne of research on how to redistribute wealth without having blowback in terms of ecological impacts and subsequent consumption. It's a tricky field but not as closed or non-existent a discussion as you're making out, and 100% an important part of the post-growth discussion.
The debate on women and feminism is an interesting one, and will vary depending on culture and location. But ultimately, I would probably agree with you more than you think on this one.
Exploration of democratic entities is scattered through various videos, but could certainly be concentrated on in a future video. I'd recommend exploring some of the literature on this, e.g. journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3197/096327113X13581561725239
There is a complex debate out there (and the subject of a future video) around how degrowth relates to global north vs. global south. Ultimately, instead of this assumption of deprivation and decline, there is much scope for things like 'contraction and convergence' where the global south get to increase energy use where needed, and the north tackles equitably downshifts. But ultimately it's important to see what the energy is being used for in the first place -- on this, I think there is a lot more scope for abundance within ecological limits (shifting from private automobiles to public transit and cycling, for instance).
On alienation, there is a lot I could point you toward, but have a look at the critiques of capitalism in The Future is Degrowth for an extended exploration.
We don't need a communist dictatorship. I personally believe in the potential for nested and intersecting scales of economic democracy and commoning. 2 billion people on the planet rely on commons for their livelihoods, 12% of humanity are members of cooperatives. There are loads of alternatives if we're willing to look for it. Could talk a lot more but thanks for taking an interest, even if you disagree!
GFY ^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
das Jordan Peterson ever been right about anything?
Happy to be directed to something...possibly that we should tidy our rooms?
The list of things Jordan Peterson doesn’t understand would choke a goddamn rhinoceros.
Yes, I think I'll hold off on making a series :D Might take a while...
maybe poor people are not inherently good and we dont need so many of them
Why would the 'inherent' nature of poor people be any different from the wealthy? And I agree, there should be fewer poor people! That's why we need to rethink the inequalities of our economy
He's such a clown.
He probably understands degrowth, but it does not go well with his right wing beliefs. He by the way does care about the poor.. With desperate people gone, who else is going to vote fascist?
By the way: is it not splendid that a degree in psychology grants one the knowledge of everything?
Yes, fair point! If we were to redistribute wealth to the poor, his constituency of resentment would be gone
Cars, firearms, enormous ammounts of meat consumption, probably even private ownership in general are all contributing to a less hospitable society and even a hostile planet. People like Peterson could not care less. They hope not to witness the hell they are facilitating😑 My prediction is this man will take his own life, rather than facing reality.
LIAR