People are always telling me, "Geoff, you're such a smart guy."

“I shall never do that,” I [Watson] answered; “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.” My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

How to do it:

1. First, pick a constellation of useful skills you can use to make money by helping others: lock smithing, cooking, computer programming, small engine repair, etc.
2. Pick a few subjects interesting to you that seem important for understanding the world. A list might look like this: American History, Logic, Evolutionary Psychology, Exercise Science, and Economics.
3. Read the most important books you can find about them and consult living experts to test your knowledge. X, blogs, and email make this possible.
4. Then, start bringing up the most important facts in conversation and discussing the ideas and difficulties in those fields with interested people.
5. Use the most powerful ideas to improve your life, craft your destiny, and assist those around you.
6. Finally, learn another language. I made the mistake of learning ancient languages. Learn modern ones first.

I came across an archived usenet post linked on social media:

How come the heros of our movies are no longer Micky Rooney or Spencer Tracy playing Thomas Edison, or Paul Muni playing Erlich or Pasteur, instead Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison and Woody Harrelson playing Larry Flint? And movies whose heros are lawyers.

 

Paperwork and lawyering. Fixing and improving and advancing society by talk-talk, not building. A lawyer president and his lawyer wife. Crises of power that don’t involve spy planes and sputniks, but incredibly complicated and desceptive word defintions and complicated tax frauds. You think we’re not preparing to go to Mars because SF is too optimistic? Sure. But it was optimistic about whether or not the can-do engineering of the 40’s and 50’s, done by the kids who’d grown up playing with radios and mechanics in the 20’s, was going to continue. Needless to say, it didn’t. I’ve seen a late 1950’s book of science fair projects for teenagers that include things like building your own X-ray machine and cyclotron (no, I’m not kidding– it can be done). There are rockets in there, and cloud chambers, and all kinds of wonderful electronics stuff. But we didn’t go that way. Instead, we turned our children into little Clintons, and our society into a bunch of people sitting at PCs, entering data about social  engineering, not mechanical engineering. So instead of going to Mars, we went instead to beaurocratic Hell. Enjoy, everybody. It really could have been different. Nature didn’t stop us– WE stopped us.

Jordan Peterson on religion as knowledge of "shouldness."

He says that science is trying to explain what things are and religious claims, when they are true, are true things about how we should live:

One of the most startling elements of modern evangelical academia is how disdainful many of them are of the average parishioner. I sensed this happening to me in seminary and once I realized it, I started to see it in books. Then Twitter was invented and I started following more of these scholars to whom I looked for advice about Biblical interpretation and the like, and I discovered the outright disgust with undergraduate students displayed by those with doctorates, the foul modes of speech they used to talk about those they disagreed with, and the way they made fun of what I would call normal people. I have a social science hypothesis:

To anybody who approaches parenting reflectively, the knowledge of personal imperfection should be obvious.

That being said, on ye olde Internet, many people become very offended by the parenting efforts, advice, or suggestions of others. I think I understand why.

We all know that we fall short as parents, but we desperately want to believe that we’re doing the best than can be done. Indeed, while it may or may not be true that our parenting is the best we can do, we certainly want to project as a fact (even to ourselves) that we’re doing the best that anybody could do. In other words, our own parenting is the ideal. Thus, we feign offense at any suggestion that we are not, as destrablizing our ideal implies that our very method of parenting and therefore our children are being attacked. It’s weird. I’ll try not to do it. My wife and I talked about the upcoming advice barrage. We’ll aim to learn what we can and ignore the rest. Being angry and resentful all the time is no way to live, parent, or enjoy yourself.

Christianese:

• I'm not sure what I'm called to do.
• I'm pretty sure God is calling me to become a chef.
• God told me to change majors.
• God called me to date so-and-so.
• I'm feeling called to the [insert cause that allows for very little personal accountability here].

1. Being Addressed by God[1] This is God's commissioning of a specific individual or group of people for a specific task. Such as when the Lord calls the prophets of the Old Testament or gives somebody a task through a prophet. This would also include the baptism of Jesus, the resurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples, as well as to Paul. In such circumstances, the idea is that the individual in question was addressed by name and given a specific task by God. Or, the group was addressed by God through such an individuals or group and given an identity and task by God, "Hear O Israel..."
2. Being a Christian[2] In the Bible, calling is also used to refer to converting to follow Jesus Christ. The idea is that the gospel message is a summons from God himself. To become a Christian it to be called. Bible passages like Ephesians 4:1 show that every Christian, by virtue of being a Christian, has a calling. This is the calling of every single Christian: to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in a community of Jesus' people.
3. Finally, in modern life, “calling” often refers your unique purpose in life. This is where the confusion sets in: When you ask, “what is the task to which I should devote my life that is unique to me and my circumstances?” The Bible does not say how to find a calling or that you “have to do it.” The idea that you must leave a unique mark on the world with your life is recent in history. The nature of your calling is tied up with your career, your family, the civilization in which you live, and your life circumstances. But many people assume, without much thought, that this particular aspect of calling is something that God will tell you to do if you only listen carefully. Therefore, many Christians never use wisdom, advice, or forethought in choosing their career or their calling because they confuse God's calling of prophets in the Bible and his calling of all Christians to follow Jesus with the notion of discovering a life goal or life mission.

• Capacities- This is what you're really good at, what you're willing to spend thousands of hours upon, and what other people tell you you're good at when they're not being flattering. See Ecc 10:10 If the ax is blunt—the edge isn't sharpened—then more strength will be needed. Putting wisdom to work will bring success.

• Job Importance- This is what you can do that makes money for your family, the causes you're interested in, for missions, for charity, etc. Not only that, but it is what you do that leaves a legacy, that changes people's lives with what you build, what allows you to raise your children to lead godly lives, to spend time with your spouse, and to influence others for the gospel. See 1Ti 5:8 If anyone does not take care of his own relatives, especially his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Also see 1Co 12:18-23 But now God has arranged the parts, every one of them, in the body according to his plan. (19) Now if all of it were one part, there wouldn't be a body, would there? (20) So there are many parts, but one body. (21) The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you," or the head to the feet, "I don't need you." (22) On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are in fact indispensable, (23) and the parts of the body that we think are less honorable are treated with special honor, and we make our less attractive parts more attractive.

• Replaceability – This is the concept of being replaced in your context. Are you doing a job wherein anybody with no training can replace you? Get out of it. Do something that you're willing to be good enough to be irreplaceable in the region you live for the field of work you're in. Pro_22:29 Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.

Questions for Career:

What is Philosophy?

1. What is real?
2. What/who is a good person?
3. How can I become such a person?
4. What can I know?
5. How can I know it?

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist.”(General Theory of Employment and Interest, 383)

How is it useful then?

1. reason from principles and such reasoning applies to almost everything.
2. abstract principles from phenomena.
3. apply reason to our feelings and circumstances so that we can have self-control. In other words, philosophy is mindset training.
4. recognize the difference between intuition, vague impressions, and reasonable beliefs.
5. compare our ideas and narratives with reality.
6. approach life practically. I just read a Tweet (a post on a social media site known as "The Twitter") which asked "What are you going to do today to A) improve yourself B) make someone else's life better? And if you don't have plans for both, why not?" Philosophy is the art and science of asking, answering, and perfecting the answers to these questions.
7. examine ourselves to see if we are on the trajectory of becoming the best version of ourselves. For Christians this is a rather lofty goal, so any tool to help us is important and the Bible is clear that we should "get wisdom." Wisdom in the Old Testament is probably very similar in meaning (though different in direction and content) to Philosophy in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

The Danger of Philosophy

1. Reading too much philosophy is a serious time waster so read good stuff. I suggest starting with Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the wisdom of Solomon, the book of Sirach, Fourth Maccabees, the dialogues of Plato, the letters of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Aristotle.
2. Putting philosophy into practice, if the philosophy is bad, can prove your ideas wrong very quickly or worse, ruin your life!
3. Learning to reason well without learning to manage your emotional reactions to the world is frequently frustrating, see Ecclesiastes 1:17-18.

In an interview for C2C Journal, Dr. Jordan Peterson mused that:

“I mean, I think huge swaths of the university are irrevocably corrupted: sociology, gone; anthropology, gone; history, big chunks of it are gone, the classics, literature, social work, political science in many places, and that doesn’t cover women’s studies, ethnic studies. They probably started lost, and it’s gotten far worse. I believe now, with the exception of the science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) branch, that universities do more harm than good. I think they produce indentured servants in the United States because tuition fees have gone up so much and you can’t declare bankruptcy on your student loans. We’re teaching university students lies, and pandering to them, and I see that as counterproductive.”

I’ve been accused of STEM idolatry before, but it was by a theologian who didn’t seem to understand things like ‘wisdom,’ ‘planning,’ or mathematics. The purpose of an education is human happiness and classical anthropology indicates that virtue is one of the key elements of happiness. The average college education seems to do little to supply virtue or the skills necessary to pursue virtue without being an ‘indentured servant.’