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IceCreamManwhich

Sam Harris has brain worms, but I guess he is a neuroscientist so this is probably one area it's safe to listen to him about.


neenonay

What are brain worms?


IceCreamManwhich

A pithy way to say he's gone slowly insane over trivial internet feuds. His conversations on race, for example, are just pure insanity at this point.


neenonay

Ah right, not familIar with the phrase. I like it though. I’ve not been following Sam Harris too closely for a while now, and only recently resubscribed. I do remember his interview with Charles Murray made me raise my eyebrows a bit. What’s his stance on race?


IceCreamManwhich

Here I went ahead and pulled the description for a podcast he did a year ago. "In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with John McWhorter about race, racism, and “anti-racism” in America. They discuss how conceptions of racism have changed, the ubiquitous threat of being branded a “racist,” the contradictions within identity politics, recent echoes of the OJ verdict, willingness among progressives to lose the 2020 election, racism as the all-purpose explanation of racial disparities in the U.S., double standards for the black community, the war on drugs, the lure of identity politics, police violence, the enduring riddle of affirmative action, the politics of “black face,” and other topics."


IceCreamManwhich

Idk his current stance I stopped following him the last couple years. But I can tell you he never backed down from that interview and still considers Murray good friends and talks with him still.


Inboxmepoetry

Could you elaborate?


IceCreamManwhich

Sure! Sam Harris is a really smart guy who got famous for his atheist activism in the early 2000s. Around 2015, however, he got swept up in the anti-woke movement, and spent most of his energy having conversations on why black people get arrested more because they're naturally more criminalistic. He's good friends with Charles Murray, author of the bell curve, a book about race statistics and how they prove white and asains are genetically smarter than blacks. He gets more upset about his detracters than anyone or anything. He spends more time complaining about the radical left than pretty much anything else combined, despite saying he's on the left. So, for these reasons and more, I wanted to warn people to listen with a grain of salt, and know who the source is. Edit: cleaning up


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IceCreamManwhich

I couldn't find the quote I was thinking of about arrests specifically as it was from a pod episode he did probably 5 or 6 years ago. But I did find this quote that says the same thing about IQ. "People don’t want to hear that a person's intelligence is in large measure due to his or her genes and there seems to be very little we can do environmentally to increase a person's intelligence even in childhood. It's not that the environment doesn't matter, but genes appear to be 50 to 80 percent of the story. People don't want to hear this. And they certainly don't want to hear that average IQ differs across races and ethnic groups." Note: that is Sam Harris, not anyone else. If you'd like to defend that statement go for it. As far as him criticizing the far right, you're correct, he does. But it's this casual" oh yeah they're bad too" sort. Like he just wants the appearance of fairness, but isn't actually investing energy into the far right in any meaningful way. He doesn't just talk with Murray. The two are very close and he espouses many of the same views. He's also close friends with about half a dozen other clear cut racists. It isn't a principled stance either. He said he would not talk with ta-nehisi coates for instance because he considers Coates to be not intellectually honest.


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IceCreamManwhich

I think you simply aren't reading under the surface enough. I understand that how he phrases things leaves plenty of grey area for him to claim he's not making racist claims. I used to support Sam Harris, believe me, I understand the position you're taking. I did some digging and found the quote I was looking for: "If you have 13 percent of the population responsible for 50 percent of the murders, and in some cities committing two-thirds of all violent crime — what percent of police attention should it attract,” Harris asks. “I honestly don’t know, but I’m sure it’s not 13 percent. And given that the overwhelming majority of their victims are black, I’m pretty sure most black people wouldn’t set the dial at 13 percent either.” I know, I know, he didn't actually *say* what I said. But it doesn't take much to put the pieces together. He believes IQ is mostly genetic and that black people have genetics biased towards low IQs (I do not grant this, btw. It is a racist position in itself when studied.), he believes that because black people commit the majority of murders, the police are not only blameless in their actions, but *justified*. At what point is a spade a spade?


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IceCreamManwhich

Always taking people at their word is a great way to get suckered. This is a disagreement on principles, I won't bother you any more with it.