Here's a take on Twelve Rules For Life from Scott Alexander. He's a clinical psychiatrist, and his website, Slater Star Codex, is a hub of what its participants call the rationalist movement, or the 'greys' (as opposed to the blues and reds in American politics). It's a good forum for in-depth discussion of issue of psychology, biology, philosophy, etc. and their intersection with politics. Alexander and the other writers can sometimes crawl pretty deep up their own bums, but the discussions rarely turn partisan or devolve into name-calling. Which is pretty amazing, considering the subject matter.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/03/26...ules-for-life/
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Maybe it’s just that everyone else is such crap at it. Maybe it’s just that the alternatives are mostly either god-hates-fags fundamentalists or more-inclusive-than-thou milquetoasts. Maybe if anyone else was any good at this, it would be easy to recognize Jordan Peterson as what he is – a mildly competent purveyor of pseudo-religious platitudes. But I actually acted as a slightly better person during the week or so I read Jordan Peterson’s book. I feel properly ashamed about this. If you ask me whether I was using dragon-related metaphors, I will vociferously deny it. But I tried a little harder at work. I was a little bit nicer to people I interacted with at home. It was very subtle. It certainly wasn’t because of anything new or non-cliched in his writing. But God help me, for some reason the cliches worked...
...You can almost believe that there really is this Science-Of-How-To-Live-Well, separate from all the other sciences, barely-communicable by normal means but expressible through art and prophecy. And that this connects with the question on everyone’s lips, the one about how we find a meaning for ourselves beyond just consumerism and casual sex...
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