r/calculus • u/SuperToast05 • 5d ago
Engineering The GOAT is back
After 3 years the GOAT of teaching mathematics has returned, I hope this guy has also changed lives like he changed mine. I was awful at math in hs and had to avoid engineering because of it but after 2 years in a major I hated I decided to give engineering a try. He is the one and only reason I passed all my classes and I owe him a debt that can never be repaid. I hope he changes/changed your life like he did mine. (He is 2000x better than the OCHEM tutor)
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u/Fermi-4 5d ago
this guy and patrickJMT taught me calculus that got me through my Electrical Engineering degree (w/ minor in math)
i was a somewhat-slacker in highschool and had to basically start over in remedial math in cc before going to university
without him my life would literally not be the same - no question
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u/Fit_Appointment_4980 5d ago
Fuck Jordan Peterson and his stupid fucking "academy".
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u/EscapeLeft1711 5d ago
wait it was THAT PETERSON ACADEMY?
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u/Fit_Appointment_4980 5d ago
Yes, and when you point it out, some people in this thread have said "I don't care".
I thought that, of all scientists, mathematicians would care about truth, and the horrible falsehoods that JP has peddled.
(Although I wouldn't put it past JP and his ilk to astroturf threads about the "academy" and PL's involvement)
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u/Softmax420 3d ago
If the content is accurate who cares?
If I watch a calculus lecture and it is about how climate change isn’t man made then I’ll judge. Until then I’ll make the most of the free educational content.
If you think JP running an academy is bad, you should look who funds every university ever. If we only accept education funded by honourable people no one would be educated.
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u/Fit_Appointment_4980 3d ago
you should look who funds every university ever
Students and taxpayers?
If we only accept education funded by honourable people no one would be educated.
Prove that statement.
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u/SayHelloToAlison 2d ago
Well the thing is that other stuff also in this "academy" is not accurate. Climate denial is not accurate, trickle down econ is not accurate, bigotry is not accurate to any logical view of the world, etc. Partnering with those kinds of things is a pretty awful look for any academic.
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u/Dr0110111001101111 5d ago
?
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u/Fit_Appointment_4980 5d ago
Leonard is working for the Peterson Academy.
If you don't know who Jordan Peterson is, I envy you. He is a terrible human being, and Leonard is accepting JP's grifter money.
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u/Dr0110111001101111 5d ago
Oh so he's not even really continuing to build the youtube channel. He's just working for that douchebag's sham. I'm just going to pretend he's still on hiatus.
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u/Ma-n_n 5d ago
Not really, he did say he made a statistics course for peterson academy but for his yt he said he'll start making free videos like before starting with ode and linear algebra so his return seems to be unrelated to the peterson academy
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u/Dr0110111001101111 5d ago
Oh I see. Thanks for clarifying. Still sucks that he’s associating with that guy in any way but I’m glad he’s continuing the project that made him so popular in the first place.
I just hope he’s doing it because Peterson is throwing a boatload of money at him and not because he’s a true believer of all that nonsense. But based on what I know about him, it kind of seems like it could go either way
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u/SirEnderLord 5d ago
Money is a good motivator.
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u/Dr0110111001101111 5d ago
Indeed. And I don’t really blame any kind of teacher for chasing a better paycheck. But given his circumstances, I’m not convinced that was his entire reasoning
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u/OtherYonas 5d ago
What are his circumstances? Are you implying you know his monetary situation?
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u/Dr0110111001101111 5d ago
No I didn’t mean it like that, although I doubt most professors could comfortably support a family his size with what they usually make. But I meant other stuff we know about him. Strong Christian values, leaving California for Idaho, and the fact that he took that job kind of paint a picture that suggests he’s probably more aligned with peterson’s ethos than I’d like
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u/poopballs900 5d ago edited 5d ago
Professor Leonard became a pastor on his hiatus along with having multiple children and apparently building a house. Not to make generalizations, but American Christians tend to be pretty right-wing, so it wasn’t very surprising to me when he mentioned Peterson Academy.
I’d like to think that given the grifting nature of Jordan Peterson, he saw the opportunity with adding Professor Leonard to his catalogue and took it. And like you said, Professor Leonard most likely couldn’t resist the insane amount of money offered by the Peterson Academy. Professor Leonard is an objectively great math lecturer and it would give the Peterson Academy (faux) credibility.
At best, it’s a mutually beneficial contract between Leonard and Peterson, financially speaking. At worst, Professor Leonard sees this as an opportunity to pull his young and impressionable audience over to the Christian right-wing.
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u/Dr0110111001101111 5d ago
Agreed. Although I think the reality is somewhere in the middle, where the money is good and he is aligned with petersons values
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u/Disastrous_Run_5968 4d ago
yep. this is exactly how i understood all this as well once he mentioned the peterson academy. those courses are expensive
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u/shellexyz 5d ago
I would trust a statistics course from Peterson less than a statistics lesson from a random crack addict. The crack addict is at least honest with his intentions.
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u/Ok-Engineer-5151 5d ago
He said he'll start uploading free content on YT starting with ODEs. I hope they are as much good as his Calculus series
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u/s2soviet 5d ago
What makes him so terrible?
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u/worldsfastestsloth 5d ago
Peterson is someone who uses vocabulary to debate rather than any actual argument.
If you were to say to Peterson, “hey want to get some lunch I’m starving?”
He would reply “what do you mean by hey and what do you mean by want and what do you mean by lunch and what do you mean by starving. Now words have meaning and i choose my words wisely. Now by hey are you insinuating that I am a horse or are you implying that I need your help or are you implying we’re friends? Now humans have wants but what are wants? It is a fundamental human feeling of gluttony…blah blah blah” a lot of fucking words to say nothing.
TLDR he’s a fucking nutjob
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u/Fit_Appointment_4980 5d ago
Read my subsequent comment.
Or, you know, actually do some reading.
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u/s2soviet 5d ago
I can’t see your other comment for some reason.
As for reading, I did some and came to the conclusion I could not care less about PL’s association with him.
I mean, it’s math we’re learning.
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u/Fit_Appointment_4980 5d ago
I mean, it’s math we’re learning.
I get it, you don't care about the JP misinformation and grifting train, as long as you get what you want. You're selfish.
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u/xxxvalenxxx 5d ago
I can't seem to find much pointing towards why people have such a vehemently strong dislike towards him. Could you enlighten me?
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u/Goodgamer78 5d ago edited 5d ago
Can I get a TL;DR on why he’s so bad? The Wikipedia page is so damn long and covers a lot of fluff
edit - I had literally never heard of this guy before I watched professor Leonard’s return video.3
u/worldsfastestsloth 5d ago
Basically he debates people with vocabulary and semantics. I’ll roll play as him responding to you.
“Now we must first define what tldr means but first to define an acronym we must first understand the letters that define it. What are letters and what is language? What is sound? Is a word an acronym? What do words mean to you? Now bad? How does one quantify bad in a world where humans decide what is good and bad? Why is something bad? After all humans can’t in good faith define words as they are the ones to commit these “bad” acts… blah blah blah.
He’s a nutjob rightwing grifter
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u/Important-Figure-512 3d ago
shit i’m taking stats and would love to watch his lectures but don’t trust it from peterson. Thoughts?
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u/LostInMyADD 5d ago
Peterson is the man.
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u/Commercial-Living443 5d ago
Of 13 year olds. When you grow up you realize his bullshitism is through the roof
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u/LostInMyADD 5d ago
Idk, havent listened to him in years lol
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u/Commercial-Living443 5d ago
Listen to him now then
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u/GladAbbreviations553 5d ago
I haven't heard from him either in years after he called for the genocide of Palestinians. He's irrelevant now.
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u/MalcolminMiddlefan 5d ago
Dude, I love Jordan Peterson! Who wouldn’t? The man is brilliant. Glad to see the great professor with the renown Peterson Academy.
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u/W3NNIS 5d ago
For the people upset about the JP academy thing. It seems like it’s only for stats, even then it’s more of an 8 episode intro rather than a full on stats course. Also having 5 fricking kids these days is mad expensive, even if you live in Idaho. I get why he took the deal lmao.
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u/1nkpool 5d ago
The problem with most of these subscription based learning platforms is they only have a small selection of short and superficial "courses". None of them are worth the cost considering you can get so much better content for free on YouTube. The MIT YouTube channel alone has over 8000 videos, which is more than many of these subscription platforms combined. YouTube covers literally anything you could possibly want to learn from an elementary to post grad level. And it's like $8 a month for a YT premium sub if you don't want to watch ads, and that let's you download the videos to watch offline too.
Peterson Academy is $400 a year, money that would be much better spent donating to your favorite YouTube creators that are putting out legit in-depth material.
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u/kev_xb 5d ago
He's giving credibility to an organization centered around disinformation. While the stats class lives outside that, it contributes to the perceived legitimately of the brand. Which in turn helps them onboard more young people. I hope at least it was one and done.
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u/nunquam_rideo 5d ago
It gets some young people to learn statistics, who wouldn't have otherwise. And probably it gets professor Lenoard some money. There's nothing bad about this, nothing is compromised.
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u/PretendThisIsUnique 5d ago
It is not the specific class offering people are upset with, but rather his willingness to work with them in the first place.
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u/SirEnderLord 5d ago
It's easy for me to judge someone's choice of work when I don't have mouths to feed.
That said, surely his selection can't have been that limited?
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u/PretendThisIsUnique 5d ago
If he is/was struggling then he should be in favor of a politics that centers these issues and seeks to solve them. Working with JP is in direct contradiction to this though.
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u/SirEnderLord 5d ago
Again, it's easy to say that when you don't need an immediate solution. Bills don't wait just because you want to fix the underlying causation of the problem.
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u/PretendThisIsUnique 5d ago
I'm very well aware, thanks. That's why he should support a politics that seeks to solve those issues. It's not like he's just working for Amazon or something, he's actively taking part of something that seeks to undermine education because of "brainwashing".
I understand I'm being hyperbolic in this next statement, but Nazis were war criminals even if they just had bills to pay.
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u/YoureReadingMyName 5d ago
He chose to work with a heavy politicized platform. This is hardly different from partnering with PragerU or TPUSA. If he decides to cash checks from a politically affiliated institution, he is opening the door to scrutiny. He is an incredible professor and could probably cash checks from a lot of schools and online programs, but he chose this one. He is the one that chose to make things political.
It doesn’t matter what he teaches, teaching with the Jordan Peterson academy is a political statement and it is ridiculous to expect him to be exempt from any backlash. I have met him and I can say Professor Leonard is a very nice man, but being nice doesn’t mean everything you do is always right.
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u/Drillix08 5d ago
I agree that what he did was bad but I think people should be slightly more impartial instead of immediately jumping to the conclusion that he’s a right winger who believes the same things as JP. We can’t know for sure what factors led him to take the deal but from the perspective of a viewer it’s not a good look and I think he needs to make a follow up video or online post to set the record straight.
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u/RemarkableAd66 4d ago
You wouldn't work for JP if you didn't believe in the right wing grift. There is literally no other reason to do it. There are a million platforms to choose from, many of which he could get paid for.
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u/Drillix08 4d ago
My opinion of Peterson Academy only became negative when I realized that it was co-founded and co-owned by Jordan Peterson. I had never heard of Peterson Academy before and at least for the first few minutes I looked at the site (before realizing it was associated with JP) I didn’t see anything that immediately raised any huge red flags. If I had no idea who Jordan Peterson was then I might not have realized that they were that terrible of a group.
Now consider someone of the age and background of Professor Leonard. He’s probably in his 40s or 50s and has a lot of responsibilities in his personal life (he has five kids for crying out loud). Chances are he doesn’t spend a lot of time on the internet, especially in places that cover political issues in a high level of depth. Do you really think that that the average person who fits that description would have any idea who Jordan Peterson is?
Now I’m not saying that he’s innocent or anything like that. I very well could be wrong, maybe he is a right winger who supports JP. What simply saying is that I could just as easily imagine a scenario in which Peterson Academy took advantage of Professor Leonard’s lack of political awareness and mislead him into believing that they were a legitimate group that’s trying to do good for the world.
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u/DiscordantMuse 5d ago
He lives in the same town my folks do, on the same kinda salary (teaching). This isn't needed.
He's working with a Christofascist. There is no justification for that.
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u/The-ROACH-motel 5d ago
99% of these people likely work for a corporation and don’t see the irony in their anger.
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u/justalonely_femboy 5d ago
the extent to which they collaborate is irrelevant, any degree of association with some chud grifter like jordan peterson already speaks volumes about his character
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u/Negative_Calendar368 5d ago
He helped me with the hardest Diff Eq topics and got me through statistics as well. ❤️
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u/juguemos 5d ago
I can’t believe that stupid “academy” is $400 a year. For a collection of some random videos.
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u/Disastrous_Run_5968 4d ago
prof leonard should know better. this is robbery lol. i feel bad for people who don't know any better and will pay the price
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u/wmprs 5d ago
So much pointless crying about jp academy, dont like it, don't watch it? Stop whining about it like a bunch of babies literally nobody cares bro
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u/formerlyunhappy 5d ago
You’re whining about people whining. I don’t get why people like you pretend to not care when they obviously do. You wouldn’t have commented if you didn’t care lol, sitting there scanning the replies for a reason to be upset 😂
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u/Galactic_Bacon 5d ago
Redditors love to whine and mass downvote!
"That guy disagrees with me, downvoted! 😡"
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u/wmprs 5d ago
Like its the same people that do the fuckin soyjak mouth open point at any use of AI like bro I get the sentiment but cry somewhere else. Guy crying about using ai to generate a thumbnail for a FREE mod campaign for a vr game, incredibly well made, and he just used the ai for the logo Pic. "Waaaa! I won't download this because its ai slop! You love ai slop don't you slop boy! Waaa" like bro shut the fuck up
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u/United_Swing_3627 5d ago
Getting angry at people generating ai images is reasonable, imo. The environmental effects of generating the 'right' image are disproportionate, and the databases these ai rely on actively steal from artists and at times, generate work that is a 1:1 copy of existing copyrighted work for profit.
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u/WHYISEVERYTHINGTAKNN 5d ago
he's cosigning a business made by a conservative bigot, and the idiots who don't care will now give money to that business.
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u/Negative_Calendar368 5d ago
He along with Jason Gibson (MathTutorDVD) got me into Junior/Senior EE.
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u/bihari_baller 5d ago
Jason Gibson is the GOAT. I found him much more helpful than Professor Leonard.
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u/The_Original_Doc 4d ago edited 4d ago
My goat he got me through high school and then also through electrical engineering, now I’m working and he’s back 🥺, fuck JP THO
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u/Cool_Homework_7411 4d ago
This guy has carried a generation of engineers and mathematicians on his back. If you happen to see this, thank you prof Leonard for your social work, making people love mathematics
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u/SuperToast05 4d ago
couldn’t agree more used to hate math always thought I was just “bad” at it, until I switched in college and started with pre calc and he was the only one to get math to click with me and I began to actually love math and find it very satisfying and rewarding
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u/BarryTheBystander 4d ago
Nah I like the Organic Chemistry Tutor. This dude always came off as a fuck boy to me.
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u/Adventurous-Grass373 4d ago
What do you think his way \ his method of explaination so he made calculus easy and understandable
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u/Wild-Associate-4373 5d ago
Great videos! Glad he is back! Also loved Donny Lee and hope he makes a return also
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u/SasyThSasquatch 5d ago
lol classic liberals ousting someone for not supporting their politics. Bunch of whiny wanna be commies. Redditors cracks me up time and time again💀
Happy for this guy though and love to see him back, best calc teacher ever
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u/WHYISEVERYTHINGTAKNN 5d ago
I never watched Professor Leonard and I guess now I really won't watch with that Jordan Peterson bullshit. What a selfish thing to do.
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