FB keeps showing me ads for Jordan Peterson's Peterson Academy. I know why it does that -- I seek out a lot of reading that someone who'd plunk down hundreds of dollars to hear Peterson ramble might also read -- but I do think it's nuts that there are apparently folks who'd plunk down hundreds of dollars to hear Peterson ramble. Judging from the Peterson Academy trailers -- complete with dramatic music and sweeping pronouncements like, "All your ideas are the ideas of dead philosophers. Every single one of them... The probability that you've had an original idea is like zero."

And it's such horseshit, because it's not *entirely* untrue -- many of your ideas when it comes to ethics and values, for instance, probably are shared by dead philosophers (and politicians and monarchs etc etc) who exerted cultural influence over the societies from which our own is descended. But ALL of them?? Surely he didn't mean ALL of them -- except he said "every single one of them." How is that not the point where most people tune out? Why take one's claim into obviously flawed territory? Is that supposed to be mindblowing, such that people plow forward to know more? Is that why the music is so dramatic???

Even if one rigidly defines "idea" to mean something distinct from every thought that pops into your head -- say, ideas are thoughts that form and derive from the framework of your personal moral/religious/governing code -- such that every idea that you have rightly could be said to derive from a preexisting philosophical tradition whether you're aware of it or not, it's still not the shocking reveal Peterson's making it out to be. Moreover, originality here would be kind of overrated? "Murder is wrong" is a hardly a novel belief, but I'm super okay with holding it. "Love thy neighbor" isn't bad either. And so on.

It's also a pretty broad definition of "originality," which I would go into if I hadn't tired of writing about bullshit from Jordan Peterson. How is anyone willing to pay this much money to listen to this dude?? How. He's running a $1776 off discount (which knocks the price down to $2723) -- HA HA HA, PATRIOTIC -- when this motherfucker is Canadian. But apparently the discount expires in 5 minutes!!!!!!!!!!

I'll wait.

HA! It reset and the discount is now available for THE NEXT THREE HOURS ONLY. XD

I don't understand.