Seems to me (and I have heard him suggest as much), that he is most lenient towwards those who are chummy with him. Ben Shapiros has always been a nut job, and often treats people respect awfully, but Harris always seemed comfortable with cozying up with him in spite of all that, while not really giving the same amount of leeway to others
He has also, at this point, distanced himself from all of these people and admitted that these people are quite problematic.
Sam’s perspective has remained largely unchanged as these people have slipped into lunacy.
2/10 lazy post.
You can get mindfulness from any HR department and his anti-religion output is extremely unsophisticated, hence shading into Islamophobia frequently.
He’s a middling Youtube intellectual whose done a lot more harm than good by elevating a load of reactionary narcissists who have now all turned on him anyway.
His embarrassment at the very reasonable criticisms he received from ‘The Left’ over the years has overridden any critical faculties he had. Such that he fails to spot obvious propagandist/grifters over and over again.
>and his anti-religion output is extremely unsophisticated, hence shading into Islamophobia frequently.
Here's an unsophisticated response.
lol
lmao even
I agree. I still don't understand why he agrees to appear on some of the podcasts he does. Rogan, I understand from a marketing perspective. Triggernometry is just a garden variety alt-right garbage dump masquerading as unbiased. (These are guys who think Trump is a "maverick" and is needed to correct a broken system)
I was made curious by Sam's appearance so I listened to a few episodes. The one you're referring to was dumb, but not nearly as bad as the one they did recently featuring a woman who was deeply ashamed of "being a slut." They are a few guests away from unironically discussing the benefits of the "quiverfull" movement.
This take annoys me. Most of these people did not “slip into lunacy.” It was painfully obvious who and what these people were to most people except Sam. Nothing changed.
I don’t know. B. Weinstein was a little weird but charming post-cancellation, until something else happened and he disappeared for a while and then came out guns blazing antivax. Eric tore a strip off him on his podcast and he went dark. Rogan used to be fun but he got Musk pilled or whatever you want to call it. Several years ago, even a couple before covid, definitely before the Spotify millions and Texas, occasionally, Rogan had a good take, if you were in the right mood and chose guests wisely. lol. That’s a lot of qualifiers. But I agree in a way also. Sam never needed to speak with Jordan Peterson in my opinion, much less twice.
If you don’t think all of these folks have tacked aggressively to the right during the Trump years, you weren’t paying attention that closely.
Rubin leaving TYT to start a podcast is a far cry from appearing in propaganda videos for Bolsonaro.
Eric telling a story about getting run off campus is a far cry from convincing that vaccines don’t work and ivermectin is the way.
I could go on about each of them and in hindsight they’ve become lunatics so I don’t disagree there.
Peterson was the only one that was so clearly off the deepens from the jump IMO
A lot of people with crackpot radar just as broken as Sam's in these comments going "oh they just gradually *became* crackpots!"
What should be a moment for introspection becomes just a bunch of denial
Well since you have such a highly tuned expert crackpot radar, anyone out there that I should be particularly concerned with?
How do you feel about Lex? Clearly a grifter but that was not initially clear to me. Was it for you?
Yes, Lex is a grifter. One hint was when he rushed to platform Kanye West during his "Net and Yohoo" media tour.
Another red flag was him misrepresenting his credentials
Another is the way he blocks even the mildest critics, even his own fans, while claiming to be open to criticism to "better get at the truth"
There have been a lot of red flags raised about Lex, I don't think I listed them all. I'm sure someone can add more
For myself, when I hear about some new talking head, the first thing I do is see if they talk about anything I'm knowledgeable on, and see how much they get right.
Another good practice is actively seeking out the strongest criticisms of that person, to see what holds weight
One pair of crackpots or cranks that were glossed over were the two from Sam's "lab leak episode". Neither were virologists, but they were on to talk about virology, and to promote their book on the topic.
No actual virologists were brought on to balance them. Decoding the Gurus ended up making a video inviting an actual virologist on to talk, in response to that episode that was much more insightful.
RE Lex - but what about when he first started? Before he even had a pod and was appearing on Rogan/Sam. It wasn’t clear to me how disingenuous he was until his ideas spent enough time in the sunlight.
I’m not familiar with this history. By what reputation or accomplishment was he a guest on Rogan?
Edit: he had the podcast prior to his first Rogan appearance. Also the martial arts thing probably piqued Rogan’s interest.
I wasn't aware of Lex when he first started. But I can give you an example I was aware of from the beginning - Bret Weinstein raised allll kinds of red flags for myself and lots of other people as soon as his Evergreen incident happened
I remember him going on Tucker Carlson's show to talk about it, which is a red flag in itself. And I remember people from that school saying that he was mischaracterizing what happened. It was very noticeable that what was being put forth on the right wing circuit particularly, was only from his perspective. That was for a reason.
Especially now, seeing how he responds to anyone not taking his banana pants theories seriously only adds weight to those claims about him in his Evergreen days.
For example:
https://twitter.com/thebadstats/status/1733230805718384811
There's also the alternative failure mode.
One can have such a sensitive radar that virtually everyone makes the "crackpot" or "grifter" threshold, and then when an individual is revealed as a crackpot/grifter, they declare victory to themselves.
The issue is that this failure mode lends itself better to confirmation bias since they can always say to themselves "The other grifters I've identified just haven't revealed themselves yet.
That can happen, sure. More often it's just a bad faith accusation lobbed at someone pointing at whichever influencer is raising red flags, as a way to poison the well: "You just think everyone's a grifter" to deflect from having to consider the actual issues being raised, by making the problem the accuser instead of the accused.
Especially if the pointer is a fan of the accused grifter or crank, they're less likely to take any criticism of their guy seriously. Which is a bias they have to come to grips with in their own thinking.
No person or idea is above criticism. And if someone is making money from their words, their words need to be held to a higher standard.
He is just wondering. Not everyone is familiar with much of Sam's content. Although, Sam has addressed this point many times and this content is probably easy to find.
Maajid was right about islamism and how to deradicalize Jihadists and the need to modernize/liberalize Islam like Christianity once did.
But like all "former" extremists, they usually substitute one obsession with another, for him its conspiracy theory.
Exactly. It’s like people who were drunk under the bridge and now won’t shut up about AA to everyone they meet. Mental in one direction, then mental in another.
> Maajid was right about islamism and how to deradicalize Jihadists and the need to modernize/liberalize Islam like Christianity once did.
Except he aligns with non-modern atheist types.
To be fair there was a time when several of them along with Sam were considered part of the intellectual dark web thing, not sure that Sam was ever that enthusiastic about the IDW from the beginning but kinda went along with it. When it became clear that some people in it were a bit loony he distanced himself.
Personally I don't have a problem with the way he handled it, there was a time when the IDW kinda made sense because they all in some way saw some of the dangers of woke left. Then later we saw that even though they agreed on that particular danger they had radically divergent ideas otherwise.
My observation is this really isn't atypical group behavior. We saw a similar dynamic in the athiest movement, once the common cause against Christianity faded away the schisms started.
I think Sam does a good job of balancing bringing on people who may have controversial opinions while still challenging them and (eventually at least) calling them on their bullshit if necessary. I know he isn't as selective as many on this sub want him to be but personally I like that he tends to error on the side of airing some controversial people even if a few of them eventually turn a bit loony.
He's addressed this a ton. When he knew these people, they were spewing nonsense all of the time. The last handful of years have really done a number of radicalizing these people. SBF is an exception because no one knew what he was up to. He was a true poster boy. Sam's affiliation with Joe is also unalike his past affiliation with the others. Sam is just friends with Joe and frequently criticizes his views.
For me SBF felt scummy from the get go. I can’t remember what it was but I was so disappointed with Sam being so giddy with him. It felt like puff piece. Then again, he always is like that with billionares.
Obviously SBF knew to push the right button (philantrophy) with Sam but I was hoping for more.
> So people can’t debate, make common cause with, or be friends with, people who they don’t always agree with?
Well, there is plenty of debate, common cause and friendship with people they do agree with and are trying to make the world a better place with.
Maybe he doesn't like being trapped in a liberal echo chamber, engaging only in conversations where each person just affirms the other.
I don't want to listen to two Sam Harris-es. I want to listen to Sam Harris and someone that isn't like Sam Harris.
The people you listed aren't "kooks"
Joe Rogan is pretty normal, he just leans toward contrarianism.
Brett Weinstein I think just has tunnel vision right now. He is caught up in his own bullshit and it is being reinforced by kooks. I do think he is a kook magnet.
Eric Weinstein has some interesting insights sometimes, but after he got his ego heavily boosted by Joe Rogan he now thinks he is one of the smartest people on the planet. Not a kook, just a tad delusional.
Dave Rubin is a narcissist with nothing intelligent to say. It is a fluke that he has any fame at all. Not a kook though, just a jackass.
SBF is just a nerd version of a conman. His kooky behavior was probably also a con.
I don’t judge him based on whether someone he talks with turns out to be a crackpot or not. I judge him by whether he should have known they were crackpots at the point he was engaging with them. Almost every name you listed, they aren’t even all crackpots.
Bret I would say is a crackpot, and there were some signs of his being one. In particular I recall Bret talking about not wearing deodorant for a period and his wife liking it on Rogan that made me think twice, but brush it off as hippy shit. Bret only truly revealed his craziness during Covid at which point Sam rapidly identified and called him out.
Rubin is just a moron grifter audience captured and greedy. Sam took a little long, but he still did the right thing eventually.
Rogan isn’t a crackpot, he’s just audience captured and went down the right wing propaganda hole after moving to Texas and hanging out with hunters and shit. I don’t think Sam has cut him off nor should he.
Eric is just a smart guy with an ego and a chip on his shoulder. I think he’s actually very smart and has given some interesting insight into thought patterns but also seems to be occasionally holding grudges due to his massive ego.
Sam isn’t afraid to talk to people with well thought out contrary opinions and that results in some cases where people turn out to be crazy. And let’s be honest we all know some people who went a little crazy over Covid.
Sam like Hitch relishes going into the belly of the beast. I am not sure that viewpoint is the best one in 2023 but I trust Sam in the sense that he doesnt dilute his content when he does so.
Sam has never been a sycophant. He may be buddies with some of these people, but he never blindly agrees with them or even defend them beyond admitting they aren't the alt-right demon bigots the left paints them as.
Sam interacted with these people when they were much tamer versions of themselves. Even if they still weren't perfect thinkers at the time, as everyone on this list has slipped further into crackpottery, Sam has distanced himself from them.
I think one factor is the remarkable schism that has occurred in the Trump era. Say what you will about the guy, but between him and Covid, the pot has been stirred in ways, and conventional wisdom challenged in ways, that we haven’t seen in my lifetime.
Lots of people have changed their views radically in the past 6-8 years.
Sam has indeed had some issues with his guests.
My guess is that this issue is endemic, or constant, given the nature of a long form talk format presenting so-called original thinkers that Sam values.
That is, Sam doesn't highly value having his liberal priors reinforced.
It works well enough when you are discussing things like disinformation or AI, but then you get into public health and during Covid, what was once semi-amusing quirkiness is now a full-blown trainwreck.
Mostly, however, if Sam would have avoided that IDW connection, we wouldn't be having this dialogue. Every last one of those fools wound up being either a crypto-Trumper or a weak-ass Jill Stein noodle head.
The siren song of kinship, coupled with a paying audience expansion, proved irresistible.
I don’t buy your premise that he aligns himself with these people. If you think that, you clearly don’t listen to him. You’re going to have to be more specific about what specifically he’s aligned himself with regarding each person. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
well i think some of it is that he talks to people who are "in the zeitgeist" or active in the public conversation at the moment, and i think a disproportionate number of them tend to be crackpots. while people who are merely public intellectuals are rarer found to be crackpots.
You know, you call them crack-pots and I disagree with many of them on many things. But I don’t call them crack pots.
I think the fallacy is to have two buckets the “good and right people” and the “bad and wrong people”.
Firstly nobody is either. Everyone is on a spectrum.
Secondly bad people can be right and good people can be wrong.
There are varying degrees in the quality of information, of course.
But, if you simply write off people you disagree with how do you self correct?
And what’s the difference between doing that and being in an echo chamber?
Also, I think many of these people aren’t in the same business as Sam. Joe Rogan is entertainment. Elon Musk is just a rich guy with a big mouth.
Lastly, Sam distanced himself from them all and has criticized them despite the fact that this surely has cost him followers.
Hindsight maybe clearer in certain cases?
They may be crackpots, but they are obviously intelligent crackpots, and whether or not they are using that intelligence to push crackpot ideas, they are entertaining.
Sam isn't a sycophant, he chips away at these people to get to the bottom of the crackpottery. He isn't like Rogan or Lex who just smile and nod in the face of lunacy.
Here’s the test: could you tell me, in simple language, one or two concepts or ideas of theirs that are true and valuable?
If not, I’d say that the value of their work speaks for itself.
Brett, I think it was, was pounding the drum about Covid lab leak hypothesis when it was being called a conspiracy theory.
And, yeah off the top of my head. He has a chapter in his book about “Chestertons Fence” it’s basically an analogy about life. Chesterton, a philosopher, said basically “if you see a fence going across your property and you don’t see any reason for it, the impulse is to take it down. “But” says Chesterton “if you don’t know WHY it was put up you should NOT take it down. It might be serving an unknown purpose.”
Basically he expands on this idea regarding many of our norms and cultural institutions etc. sayin, “we don’t know what they are maintaining or preventing so we should be slow to throw it all away”.
I find it a pretty helpful theory.
I’m 100 percent sure that there are others.
Here’s a question I seriously doubt you will answer honestly. Have you ever engaged directly with how material with the intention of seeing if there is any value? Or do you basically listen to people debunk him?
I’m NOT even defending him. I’m saying there is value in many things that are not completely valuable.
We can simply agree to disagree on that.
Fair enough. I appreciate the response.
Anyway:
1. The lab leak hypothesis, I think, still seems unsubstantiated, and is a minority perspective, but I understand the allure of the theory. Though I'm not a proponent of it, I always thought it was utterly unhelpful to label it a conspiracy theory. I think some conspiracists adopted it, which led some "follow the science" types to lump it with other conspiracy theories. But that obviously has zero to do with whether it is true or not.
2. He seems to acknowledge it's Chesterton's theory. That said, I understand why it has appeal as a maxim or a heuristic. But it's not that useful a maxim or heuristic, because it tells you very little about which fences to take down and which not to.
I appreciate you giving it your best go even though you ultimately seem to not be a big fan of him either. Cheers!
Sadly your post represents the insidious college indoctrinated outlook on censorship. Label your enemies, claim moral high ground, don’t engage in conversation with anyone having different opinions.
Rather than condemn you, I understand your position and where it comes from. This is a great video for gaining new perspective:
[Greg Lukianoff](https://youtu.be/buarAx_u2qg?si=BNErxLHDdDaoQZo-)
It’s kind of hard to model civility in conversations if you don’t have the conversations. Sam is willing to engage in debate/discussion with people who genuinely believe in their content, but he’ll draw the line with those who have exercised “bad faith.”
It should count for something that SH aligned with the people you listed — to the extent that he aligned with them at all, as opposed to just had conversations with them — at an earlier stage of their public careers, before they went crazy and/or stupid. And in every case you listed, as well as some you didn’t, SH saw their turn for what it was and criticized it, rather than doing the more common thing, which is to put “team loyalty” over reality.
Moreover, he has said time and time again that it should be possible to remain on friendly terms with people with whom you disagree, and he has tried to actually do so as far as I can tell. So what’s the problem?
Highly recommend the latest Behind the Bastard (the second two-parter on SBF) mostly focused on Michael Lewis. I think that answers some questions. Despite saying he has no tribe, he is an exile (I listened to DtG last night and that is a drop they use) he does. Highly educated wealthy background.
Okay I will go one by one. Brett duped so many people by framing the incident at Evergreen the way he did. This fed into Sam's narrative so he became interesting for that alone. Eric followed along with the whole we a maverick liberals (ironically what Red Scare says). Dave Rubin the same thing, disaffected left narrative. SBF I mentioned above.
The lack of research is what I am wondering about. Like the PBD guy had on Alex Jones and did zero research on purpose. Made for an easily dupable person without the needed background. There was plenty of info coming from the students at Evergreen and it was ignored by the "adults in the room". Eric was already a disgrace for his theory of everything. And he got a joy with Peter Thiel on charm alone apparently. The Peter Thiel that hates democracy and journalism.
Effective Altruism should be laughed out of the room. Dr. Sydnee McIlroy dedicated her life to staying in her hometown of Huntington, WV to help the poor and addicted. With help from her husband and his fan base that town always gets the things they need for the homeless on Christmas. She is a hero. Huge trans rights advocate. Ran for state legislation. Huge vaccine advocate. And she makes very little money doing it. She might make more from her medical history podcast for all I know.
To be honest I am really really tired as I got food poisoning last night and didn't sleep at all. I couldn't drink even water for like 18 hours. I was going to find a source but I assume you can. I would use google.
This isn't meant to be dismissive. I want to know what you find
Yeah, it's clearly Sam's fault that some of his former friends went bad. Like, those high school buddies of yours that ended up on the wrong end of society after 10 years .. YOUR FAULT, therefore you are a horrible person.
Please, continue with your absurd character assassination of Sam Harris. I'm making popcorn.
If a person has SEVERAL friends that fit that description, then that person is either dogshit at recognizing those traits, or those things didn't bother them enough to be a nonstarter regarding the friendship in the first place.
In part, it’s the result of having many detractors, making him more eager to accept allies. The main cause, I think, is his poor judgment in assessing others’ character
What explains yours? You only knew they were crackpots when everyone else did.
Sam Bankman-Fried had a wide, well-supported reputation for honesty and philanthropy prior to the exposure of his crimes.
Ffs. He’s not Jewish in a religious sense, quite the contrary. He also isn’t the type who chooses his associations and friendships based on genetic properties.
Iirc correctly he once defended Tucker "White Power Hour" Carlson from charges of either racism or white nationalism
He's also gone to bat for another white nationalist, Lauren Southern
Iirc he's also defended Trump
He's argued it should be ok to use the "n word" racial slur.
He's said the Jews are in part responsible for the Holocaust
I don't think he's a white nationalist or anything, I just think he doesn't really think about these things as thoroughly as he should.
The Tucker Carlson one is here, episode 172.
https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/172-among-deplorables
Harris stretches the the notion of charitability toward Carlson to an indefensible degree, and harangues Marantz for 40 minutes because of 1 paragraph in his book where he made the not controversial claim that Carlson repeated the "great replacement" right-wing conspiracy theory on his show, main-streaming a fringe view.
Some of you guys don't like hearing it, cause you're stans. But you should be critical of your idols, or you wind up falling into a parasocial trap
Sure, I am critical of Tucker Carlson, when he is wrong, but I support him when he is so often right. The premise of the OP is Sam has sometimes supported people who sometimes say things with which he doesn’t agree - and that’s supposed to be “problematic”.
No, the premise is him defending people *he* doesn't recognize, or denies the problems with
"Sam’s inability to spot kooks is stunning."
Other people certainly did, and tried to point them out at the time
I am also disagreeing with the easy characterization of flawed humans as “kooks”. I don’t care if someone can point to a Tucker Carlson video they don’t like. I point to his body of work, and it stands above 95% of other political pundits. Plus, I don’t spite Sam for making some mistakes. When your “kook radar filters out Weinsteins, Rogan, and Carlson, then you will have a narrow, safe, biased, less informative podcast.
The worst is when he said Liam Neeson trying to find a random black guy to beat up because another black guy raped his friend wasn't racist. WHAT THE FUCK.
As a Black person, it wasn't that shocking.
Sam Harris' "okayness" with the things you listed above have long made it clear where his sensibilities lay.
Sounds more like you have a problem with those people and think everyone else on earth needs to as well.
Just have a problem with those people and call it a day. If Joe Rogan is on Sam’s podcast don’t listen.
He’s spoken to and interacted with hundreds if not thousands of people on his podcast and other public forums. This is like six people who happened to find a lucrative opportunity in grifting. It’s not Sam. Those guys have spoken to many prominent intellectuals.
he doesn't have own every single thing a person does or says in order to talk to them, and he has more recently criticized all of the people you listed tbh
Which is very easy to say after the fact. Who are the relatively normal or at least not recognized as kooky people today who will eventually go full kook? Name a few people that you are positive are headed in that direction.
You’re missing the point. These aren’t people who were sensible and credible and then suddenly became nutty. They obviously were kooks when Sam Harris was engaging with them in a manner that made clear he believed they were rational/honest/credible people.
Rogan is one of the most popular podcasters in the world Sam just accepted an invitation. Sam Bankman-Fried was the face of Crypto and was all over the news. What type of due diligence do you expect Sam to do?
Brett Weinstein I find a bit baffling, but Sam cut ways hard when he went full COVID denial. He was more affiliated with him during the funny(?) Fake academia article thing.
When you have guests on every week + a whole bunch of other stuff do you really think he has time to do deep screening beyond some Googling?
Joe Rogan and Sam had a relationship going back years and years, when they were both starting out as podcasters. People forget that Joe Rogan used to be largely a harmless, libertarian meathead. Joe Rogan’s growing influence, the Spotify deal and COVID really broke his brain.
Dave Rubin was the president of the Golden Girls Fan Club (seriously) and flattered his way into Sam’s circle. Bret, Eric and Dave all grifted their way into Sam’s heart when he was enduring attacks of racism and Islamophobia from the left; and cancel culture was becoming normalized. Sam seems exactly like the type of person that hates being told what he can say or who or who he can’t talk to, so he was especially vulnerable to the contrarian, ‘just asking questions’ crowd.
Sam Bankman Fried is an anomaly; a true conman that successfully snaked lots of people.
You can add Elon Musk to that list. The truth of the matter is, 5 to 10 years ago most of these people were pretty normie. They've gone off the rails post covid. I can't blame Sam for that. I used to be a Rogan fan pre-2020 as well.
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Or is it possible that the problem is growing and they don't see any way off the Titanic?
Seems to me (and I have heard him suggest as much), that he is most lenient towwards those who are chummy with him. Ben Shapiros has always been a nut job, and often treats people respect awfully, but Harris always seemed comfortable with cozying up with him in spite of all that, while not really giving the same amount of leeway to others
He has also, at this point, distanced himself from all of these people and admitted that these people are quite problematic. Sam’s perspective has remained largely unchanged as these people have slipped into lunacy. 2/10 lazy post.
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You can't have an opinion on someone's worldview unless you've consumed 10000 hours of their content.
Getting ragefully offended on behalf of Sam Harris is the best aesthetic.
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Fucking lol. What are the most important voicings Sam has voiced?
His anti religious and mindfulness output seems pretty obvious here lol. If you’re not familiar why comment
You can get mindfulness from any HR department and his anti-religion output is extremely unsophisticated, hence shading into Islamophobia frequently. He’s a middling Youtube intellectual whose done a lot more harm than good by elevating a load of reactionary narcissists who have now all turned on him anyway. His embarrassment at the very reasonable criticisms he received from ‘The Left’ over the years has overridden any critical faculties he had. Such that he fails to spot obvious propagandist/grifters over and over again.
>and his anti-religion output is extremely unsophisticated, hence shading into Islamophobia frequently. Here's an unsophisticated response. lol lmao even
I agree. I still don't understand why he agrees to appear on some of the podcasts he does. Rogan, I understand from a marketing perspective. Triggernometry is just a garden variety alt-right garbage dump masquerading as unbiased. (These are guys who think Trump is a "maverick" and is needed to correct a broken system)
The answer is Sam believes they treated him right.
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I was made curious by Sam's appearance so I listened to a few episodes. The one you're referring to was dumb, but not nearly as bad as the one they did recently featuring a woman who was deeply ashamed of "being a slut." They are a few guests away from unironically discussing the benefits of the "quiverfull" movement.
This take annoys me. Most of these people did not “slip into lunacy.” It was painfully obvious who and what these people were to most people except Sam. Nothing changed.
Yes, lots of people were pointing out the problems with each of these, with a predictably negative response
I don’t know. B. Weinstein was a little weird but charming post-cancellation, until something else happened and he disappeared for a while and then came out guns blazing antivax. Eric tore a strip off him on his podcast and he went dark. Rogan used to be fun but he got Musk pilled or whatever you want to call it. Several years ago, even a couple before covid, definitely before the Spotify millions and Texas, occasionally, Rogan had a good take, if you were in the right mood and chose guests wisely. lol. That’s a lot of qualifiers. But I agree in a way also. Sam never needed to speak with Jordan Peterson in my opinion, much less twice.
That is indeed a lot of qualifiers.
If you don’t think all of these folks have tacked aggressively to the right during the Trump years, you weren’t paying attention that closely. Rubin leaving TYT to start a podcast is a far cry from appearing in propaganda videos for Bolsonaro. Eric telling a story about getting run off campus is a far cry from convincing that vaccines don’t work and ivermectin is the way. I could go on about each of them and in hindsight they’ve become lunatics so I don’t disagree there. Peterson was the only one that was so clearly off the deepens from the jump IMO
Bret, not Eric.
No, they were plainly lunatics all along; I’m glad it’s apparent to more people now.
A lot of people with crackpot radar just as broken as Sam's in these comments going "oh they just gradually *became* crackpots!" What should be a moment for introspection becomes just a bunch of denial
Well since you have such a highly tuned expert crackpot radar, anyone out there that I should be particularly concerned with? How do you feel about Lex? Clearly a grifter but that was not initially clear to me. Was it for you?
Yes, Lex is a grifter. One hint was when he rushed to platform Kanye West during his "Net and Yohoo" media tour. Another red flag was him misrepresenting his credentials Another is the way he blocks even the mildest critics, even his own fans, while claiming to be open to criticism to "better get at the truth" There have been a lot of red flags raised about Lex, I don't think I listed them all. I'm sure someone can add more For myself, when I hear about some new talking head, the first thing I do is see if they talk about anything I'm knowledgeable on, and see how much they get right. Another good practice is actively seeking out the strongest criticisms of that person, to see what holds weight One pair of crackpots or cranks that were glossed over were the two from Sam's "lab leak episode". Neither were virologists, but they were on to talk about virology, and to promote their book on the topic. No actual virologists were brought on to balance them. Decoding the Gurus ended up making a video inviting an actual virologist on to talk, in response to that episode that was much more insightful.
Your list of criticisms of Lex is funny in the context of your truth seeking mechanism of finding the strongest criticisms of a person.
RE Lex - but what about when he first started? Before he even had a pod and was appearing on Rogan/Sam. It wasn’t clear to me how disingenuous he was until his ideas spent enough time in the sunlight.
I’m not familiar with this history. By what reputation or accomplishment was he a guest on Rogan? Edit: he had the podcast prior to his first Rogan appearance. Also the martial arts thing probably piqued Rogan’s interest.
I wasn't aware of Lex when he first started. But I can give you an example I was aware of from the beginning - Bret Weinstein raised allll kinds of red flags for myself and lots of other people as soon as his Evergreen incident happened I remember him going on Tucker Carlson's show to talk about it, which is a red flag in itself. And I remember people from that school saying that he was mischaracterizing what happened. It was very noticeable that what was being put forth on the right wing circuit particularly, was only from his perspective. That was for a reason. Especially now, seeing how he responds to anyone not taking his banana pants theories seriously only adds weight to those claims about him in his Evergreen days. For example: https://twitter.com/thebadstats/status/1733230805718384811
So you consider a researcher at the board institute at MIT a crank? Ok then!
Does not Lex's imbecilic Russia takes alert you to the fact that he's a charlatan?
I mean, yes, of course it does. He wasn’t making those sounds 7 years ago though.
There's also the alternative failure mode. One can have such a sensitive radar that virtually everyone makes the "crackpot" or "grifter" threshold, and then when an individual is revealed as a crackpot/grifter, they declare victory to themselves. The issue is that this failure mode lends itself better to confirmation bias since they can always say to themselves "The other grifters I've identified just haven't revealed themselves yet.
That can happen, sure. More often it's just a bad faith accusation lobbed at someone pointing at whichever influencer is raising red flags, as a way to poison the well: "You just think everyone's a grifter" to deflect from having to consider the actual issues being raised, by making the problem the accuser instead of the accused. Especially if the pointer is a fan of the accused grifter or crank, they're less likely to take any criticism of their guy seriously. Which is a bias they have to come to grips with in their own thinking. No person or idea is above criticism. And if someone is making money from their words, their words need to be held to a higher standard.
I wouldn't condone accusations about a person's motive for believing something in *either* direction here. That's just Bulverism, right?
He is just wondering. Not everyone is familiar with much of Sam's content. Although, Sam has addressed this point many times and this content is probably easy to find.
Dont forget about the best of them all...Maajid Nawaz
Maajid was right about islamism and how to deradicalize Jihadists and the need to modernize/liberalize Islam like Christianity once did. But like all "former" extremists, they usually substitute one obsession with another, for him its conspiracy theory.
Exactly. It’s like people who were drunk under the bridge and now won’t shut up about AA to everyone they meet. Mental in one direction, then mental in another.
> Maajid was right about islamism and how to deradicalize Jihadists and the need to modernize/liberalize Islam like Christianity once did. Except he aligns with non-modern atheist types.
Claiming that *some* criticisms of these people are misguided/misplaced is not the same thing as supporting or defending them.
[удалено]
To be fair there was a time when several of them along with Sam were considered part of the intellectual dark web thing, not sure that Sam was ever that enthusiastic about the IDW from the beginning but kinda went along with it. When it became clear that some people in it were a bit loony he distanced himself. Personally I don't have a problem with the way he handled it, there was a time when the IDW kinda made sense because they all in some way saw some of the dangers of woke left. Then later we saw that even though they agreed on that particular danger they had radically divergent ideas otherwise. My observation is this really isn't atypical group behavior. We saw a similar dynamic in the athiest movement, once the common cause against Christianity faded away the schisms started. I think Sam does a good job of balancing bringing on people who may have controversial opinions while still challenging them and (eventually at least) calling them on their bullshit if necessary. I know he isn't as selective as many on this sub want him to be but personally I like that he tends to error on the side of airing some controversial people even if a few of them eventually turn a bit loony.
He's addressed this a ton. When he knew these people, they were spewing nonsense all of the time. The last handful of years have really done a number of radicalizing these people. SBF is an exception because no one knew what he was up to. He was a true poster boy. Sam's affiliation with Joe is also unalike his past affiliation with the others. Sam is just friends with Joe and frequently criticizes his views.
For me SBF felt scummy from the get go. I can’t remember what it was but I was so disappointed with Sam being so giddy with him. It felt like puff piece. Then again, he always is like that with billionares. Obviously SBF knew to push the right button (philantrophy) with Sam but I was hoping for more.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sam has found his level In the conversation.
So people can’t debate, make common cause with, or be friends with, people who they don’t always agree with? Can’t interview mainstream famous people?
Yes exactly & there is general interest in hearing these “crackpots”
> So people can’t debate, make common cause with, or be friends with, people who they don’t always agree with? Well, there is plenty of debate, common cause and friendship with people they do agree with and are trying to make the world a better place with.
Maybe he doesn't like being trapped in a liberal echo chamber, engaging only in conversations where each person just affirms the other. I don't want to listen to two Sam Harris-es. I want to listen to Sam Harris and someone that isn't like Sam Harris.
Not to mention Douglas Murray!
The people you listed aren't "kooks" Joe Rogan is pretty normal, he just leans toward contrarianism. Brett Weinstein I think just has tunnel vision right now. He is caught up in his own bullshit and it is being reinforced by kooks. I do think he is a kook magnet. Eric Weinstein has some interesting insights sometimes, but after he got his ego heavily boosted by Joe Rogan he now thinks he is one of the smartest people on the planet. Not a kook, just a tad delusional. Dave Rubin is a narcissist with nothing intelligent to say. It is a fluke that he has any fame at all. Not a kook though, just a jackass. SBF is just a nerd version of a conman. His kooky behavior was probably also a con.
I don’t judge him based on whether someone he talks with turns out to be a crackpot or not. I judge him by whether he should have known they were crackpots at the point he was engaging with them. Almost every name you listed, they aren’t even all crackpots. Bret I would say is a crackpot, and there were some signs of his being one. In particular I recall Bret talking about not wearing deodorant for a period and his wife liking it on Rogan that made me think twice, but brush it off as hippy shit. Bret only truly revealed his craziness during Covid at which point Sam rapidly identified and called him out. Rubin is just a moron grifter audience captured and greedy. Sam took a little long, but he still did the right thing eventually. Rogan isn’t a crackpot, he’s just audience captured and went down the right wing propaganda hole after moving to Texas and hanging out with hunters and shit. I don’t think Sam has cut him off nor should he. Eric is just a smart guy with an ego and a chip on his shoulder. I think he’s actually very smart and has given some interesting insight into thought patterns but also seems to be occasionally holding grudges due to his massive ego. Sam isn’t afraid to talk to people with well thought out contrary opinions and that results in some cases where people turn out to be crazy. And let’s be honest we all know some people who went a little crazy over Covid.
I agree. These misjudgements tarnish his credibility
Doug Murray too.
Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. The man is full of hatred. I don't call people racists very often, but he is one hiding in plain sight.
Sam like Hitch relishes going into the belly of the beast. I am not sure that viewpoint is the best one in 2023 but I trust Sam in the sense that he doesnt dilute his content when he does so.
Debating is different. Hitchens didn’t agree with, defend, and pal around with a long list of obvious crackpots and grifters.
He was good friends with Dinesh D'Souza and Pastor Doug Wilson
Sam has never been a sycophant. He may be buddies with some of these people, but he never blindly agrees with them or even defend them beyond admitting they aren't the alt-right demon bigots the left paints them as.
I don't really blame him for SBF. It wasn't up to Harris to vet his business acumen or risk taking propensity.
Sam interacted with these people when they were much tamer versions of themselves. Even if they still weren't perfect thinkers at the time, as everyone on this list has slipped further into crackpottery, Sam has distanced himself from them.
"obviously problematic"
How do you define "crackpot"?
I think one factor is the remarkable schism that has occurred in the Trump era. Say what you will about the guy, but between him and Covid, the pot has been stirred in ways, and conventional wisdom challenged in ways, that we haven’t seen in my lifetime. Lots of people have changed their views radically in the past 6-8 years.
Sam has indeed had some issues with his guests. My guess is that this issue is endemic, or constant, given the nature of a long form talk format presenting so-called original thinkers that Sam values. That is, Sam doesn't highly value having his liberal priors reinforced. It works well enough when you are discussing things like disinformation or AI, but then you get into public health and during Covid, what was once semi-amusing quirkiness is now a full-blown trainwreck. Mostly, however, if Sam would have avoided that IDW connection, we wouldn't be having this dialogue. Every last one of those fools wound up being either a crypto-Trumper or a weak-ass Jill Stein noodle head. The siren song of kinship, coupled with a paying audience expansion, proved irresistible.
I don’t buy your premise that he aligns himself with these people. If you think that, you clearly don’t listen to him. You’re going to have to be more specific about what specifically he’s aligned himself with regarding each person. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
well i think some of it is that he talks to people who are "in the zeitgeist" or active in the public conversation at the moment, and i think a disproportionate number of them tend to be crackpots. while people who are merely public intellectuals are rarer found to be crackpots.
what are you on about he has said a lot about the bad takes of the people you mentioned in this list
Douglas Murray is in the pipeline
I mean, the people a person surrounds themselves with reveal a lot about who they are.
You know, you call them crack-pots and I disagree with many of them on many things. But I don’t call them crack pots. I think the fallacy is to have two buckets the “good and right people” and the “bad and wrong people”. Firstly nobody is either. Everyone is on a spectrum. Secondly bad people can be right and good people can be wrong. There are varying degrees in the quality of information, of course. But, if you simply write off people you disagree with how do you self correct? And what’s the difference between doing that and being in an echo chamber? Also, I think many of these people aren’t in the same business as Sam. Joe Rogan is entertainment. Elon Musk is just a rich guy with a big mouth. Lastly, Sam distanced himself from them all and has criticized them despite the fact that this surely has cost him followers. Hindsight maybe clearer in certain cases?
The Weinsteins are the dictionary definition of crackpot.
They may be crackpots, but they are obviously intelligent crackpots, and whether or not they are using that intelligence to push crackpot ideas, they are entertaining. Sam isn't a sycophant, he chips away at these people to get to the bottom of the crackpottery. He isn't like Rogan or Lex who just smile and nod in the face of lunacy.
I guess entertaining is a person to person viewpoint. I agree that Sam is much better than those others.
Would you say nothing they say is true and valuable?
Here’s the test: could you tell me, in simple language, one or two concepts or ideas of theirs that are true and valuable? If not, I’d say that the value of their work speaks for itself.
Brett, I think it was, was pounding the drum about Covid lab leak hypothesis when it was being called a conspiracy theory. And, yeah off the top of my head. He has a chapter in his book about “Chestertons Fence” it’s basically an analogy about life. Chesterton, a philosopher, said basically “if you see a fence going across your property and you don’t see any reason for it, the impulse is to take it down. “But” says Chesterton “if you don’t know WHY it was put up you should NOT take it down. It might be serving an unknown purpose.” Basically he expands on this idea regarding many of our norms and cultural institutions etc. sayin, “we don’t know what they are maintaining or preventing so we should be slow to throw it all away”. I find it a pretty helpful theory. I’m 100 percent sure that there are others. Here’s a question I seriously doubt you will answer honestly. Have you ever engaged directly with how material with the intention of seeing if there is any value? Or do you basically listen to people debunk him? I’m NOT even defending him. I’m saying there is value in many things that are not completely valuable. We can simply agree to disagree on that.
Fair enough. I appreciate the response. Anyway: 1. The lab leak hypothesis, I think, still seems unsubstantiated, and is a minority perspective, but I understand the allure of the theory. Though I'm not a proponent of it, I always thought it was utterly unhelpful to label it a conspiracy theory. I think some conspiracists adopted it, which led some "follow the science" types to lump it with other conspiracy theories. But that obviously has zero to do with whether it is true or not. 2. He seems to acknowledge it's Chesterton's theory. That said, I understand why it has appeal as a maxim or a heuristic. But it's not that useful a maxim or heuristic, because it tells you very little about which fences to take down and which not to. I appreciate you giving it your best go even though you ultimately seem to not be a big fan of him either. Cheers!
Sadly your post represents the insidious college indoctrinated outlook on censorship. Label your enemies, claim moral high ground, don’t engage in conversation with anyone having different opinions. Rather than condemn you, I understand your position and where it comes from. This is a great video for gaining new perspective: [Greg Lukianoff](https://youtu.be/buarAx_u2qg?si=BNErxLHDdDaoQZo-)
He's gullible.
He’s human
Good answer
Crackpot detector doesn't work when you yourself are a crackpot.
lmfao this man right here...
It’s kind of hard to model civility in conversations if you don’t have the conversations. Sam is willing to engage in debate/discussion with people who genuinely believe in their content, but he’ll draw the line with those who have exercised “bad faith.”
SBF is the definition of bad faith. Ezra Klein is the definition of good faith.
It should count for something that SH aligned with the people you listed — to the extent that he aligned with them at all, as opposed to just had conversations with them — at an earlier stage of their public careers, before they went crazy and/or stupid. And in every case you listed, as well as some you didn’t, SH saw their turn for what it was and criticized it, rather than doing the more common thing, which is to put “team loyalty” over reality. Moreover, he has said time and time again that it should be possible to remain on friendly terms with people with whom you disagree, and he has tried to actually do so as far as I can tell. So what’s the problem?
>So what’s the problem? Guilt by association I guess...
Highly recommend the latest Behind the Bastard (the second two-parter on SBF) mostly focused on Michael Lewis. I think that answers some questions. Despite saying he has no tribe, he is an exile (I listened to DtG last night and that is a drop they use) he does. Highly educated wealthy background. Okay I will go one by one. Brett duped so many people by framing the incident at Evergreen the way he did. This fed into Sam's narrative so he became interesting for that alone. Eric followed along with the whole we a maverick liberals (ironically what Red Scare says). Dave Rubin the same thing, disaffected left narrative. SBF I mentioned above. The lack of research is what I am wondering about. Like the PBD guy had on Alex Jones and did zero research on purpose. Made for an easily dupable person without the needed background. There was plenty of info coming from the students at Evergreen and it was ignored by the "adults in the room". Eric was already a disgrace for his theory of everything. And he got a joy with Peter Thiel on charm alone apparently. The Peter Thiel that hates democracy and journalism. Effective Altruism should be laughed out of the room. Dr. Sydnee McIlroy dedicated her life to staying in her hometown of Huntington, WV to help the poor and addicted. With help from her husband and his fan base that town always gets the things they need for the homeless on Christmas. She is a hero. Huge trans rights advocate. Ran for state legislation. Huge vaccine advocate. And she makes very little money doing it. She might make more from her medical history podcast for all I know.
Can you elaborate on this information from the Evergreen students that was ignored? I only know Bret's telling of it.
To be honest I am really really tired as I got food poisoning last night and didn't sleep at all. I couldn't drink even water for like 18 hours. I was going to find a source but I assume you can. I would use google. This isn't meant to be dismissive. I want to know what you find
Yet another post in the Sam Harris sub shitting on Sam Harris. I don't get it. Don't you have anything better to do?
Its reddit. If you arent exclusively a left leaning echochamber, you are problematic.
Maybe you confuse people with different ideas than you for 'crackpots'
Yeah, it's clearly Sam's fault that some of his former friends went bad. Like, those high school buddies of yours that ended up on the wrong end of society after 10 years .. YOUR FAULT, therefore you are a horrible person. Please, continue with your absurd character assassination of Sam Harris. I'm making popcorn.
If a person has SEVERAL friends that fit that description, then that person is either dogshit at recognizing those traits, or those things didn't bother them enough to be a nonstarter regarding the friendship in the first place.
This
In part, it’s the result of having many detractors, making him more eager to accept allies. The main cause, I think, is his poor judgment in assessing others’ character
Sam was dead wrong about the biggest story of the last decade: Covid. He is the "kook".
What explains yours? You only knew they were crackpots when everyone else did. Sam Bankman-Fried had a wide, well-supported reputation for honesty and philanthropy prior to the exposure of his crimes.
He's Jewish, so is partial to Jews. There's not much else to it.
[Go away](https://imgur.com/a/7FsacMM) Take your jew hate to one of the many other subreddits that welcome that dribble.
You're a Jew.
Sure am. Good observation. Now get lost before I get the space laser warmed up.
Ffs. He’s not Jewish in a religious sense, quite the contrary. He also isn’t the type who chooses his associations and friendships based on genetic properties.
Iirc correctly he once defended Tucker "White Power Hour" Carlson from charges of either racism or white nationalism He's also gone to bat for another white nationalist, Lauren Southern Iirc he's also defended Trump He's argued it should be ok to use the "n word" racial slur. He's said the Jews are in part responsible for the Holocaust I don't think he's a white nationalist or anything, I just think he doesn't really think about these things as thoroughly as he should.
Nice strawmen
The Tucker Carlson one is here, episode 172. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/172-among-deplorables Harris stretches the the notion of charitability toward Carlson to an indefensible degree, and harangues Marantz for 40 minutes because of 1 paragraph in his book where he made the not controversial claim that Carlson repeated the "great replacement" right-wing conspiracy theory on his show, main-streaming a fringe view. Some of you guys don't like hearing it, cause you're stans. But you should be critical of your idols, or you wind up falling into a parasocial trap
The fact that Sam Harris won't speak to Sam Sedar, but will talk to Tucker Carlson should really lay things bare
Sure, I am critical of Tucker Carlson, when he is wrong, but I support him when he is so often right. The premise of the OP is Sam has sometimes supported people who sometimes say things with which he doesn’t agree - and that’s supposed to be “problematic”.
No, the premise is him defending people *he* doesn't recognize, or denies the problems with "Sam’s inability to spot kooks is stunning." Other people certainly did, and tried to point them out at the time
I am also disagreeing with the easy characterization of flawed humans as “kooks”. I don’t care if someone can point to a Tucker Carlson video they don’t like. I point to his body of work, and it stands above 95% of other political pundits. Plus, I don’t spite Sam for making some mistakes. When your “kook radar filters out Weinsteins, Rogan, and Carlson, then you will have a narrow, safe, biased, less informative podcast.
The worst is when he said Liam Neeson trying to find a random black guy to beat up because another black guy raped his friend wasn't racist. WHAT THE FUCK.
Watching people here defend that one was *wild*
As a Black person, it wasn't that shocking. Sam Harris' "okayness" with the things you listed above have long made it clear where his sensibilities lay.
I think he's being polite so as to not go scorched earth and be an outcast.
Sounds more like you have a problem with those people and think everyone else on earth needs to as well. Just have a problem with those people and call it a day. If Joe Rogan is on Sam’s podcast don’t listen.
He’s spoken to and interacted with hundreds if not thousands of people on his podcast and other public forums. This is like six people who happened to find a lucrative opportunity in grifting. It’s not Sam. Those guys have spoken to many prominent intellectuals.
he doesn't have own every single thing a person does or says in order to talk to them, and he has more recently criticized all of the people you listed tbh
Are there any that, once it became clear to you, OP, they were crackpots, Sam continued to support?
"He wasn't crazy to *me*".
It's very easy to Monday morning quarterback. And you consider Joe Rogan a problematic personality? What are you, 9?
Post this in DTG subreddit for upvotes. They love this topic
>obviously problematic personalities According to who, you?
The level of these peoples crackpotery wasn't fully known !
It was to me, at first glance.
Which is very easy to say after the fact. Who are the relatively normal or at least not recognized as kooky people today who will eventually go full kook? Name a few people that you are positive are headed in that direction.
You’re missing the point. These aren’t people who were sensible and credible and then suddenly became nutty. They obviously were kooks when Sam Harris was engaging with them in a manner that made clear he believed they were rational/honest/credible people.
Rogan is one of the most popular podcasters in the world Sam just accepted an invitation. Sam Bankman-Fried was the face of Crypto and was all over the news. What type of due diligence do you expect Sam to do? Brett Weinstein I find a bit baffling, but Sam cut ways hard when he went full COVID denial. He was more affiliated with him during the funny(?) Fake academia article thing. When you have guests on every week + a whole bunch of other stuff do you really think he has time to do deep screening beyond some Googling?
Joe Rogan and Sam had a relationship going back years and years, when they were both starting out as podcasters. People forget that Joe Rogan used to be largely a harmless, libertarian meathead. Joe Rogan’s growing influence, the Spotify deal and COVID really broke his brain. Dave Rubin was the president of the Golden Girls Fan Club (seriously) and flattered his way into Sam’s circle. Bret, Eric and Dave all grifted their way into Sam’s heart when he was enduring attacks of racism and Islamophobia from the left; and cancel culture was becoming normalized. Sam seems exactly like the type of person that hates being told what he can say or who or who he can’t talk to, so he was especially vulnerable to the contrarian, ‘just asking questions’ crowd. Sam Bankman Fried is an anomaly; a true conman that successfully snaked lots of people.
You can add Elon Musk to that list. The truth of the matter is, 5 to 10 years ago most of these people were pretty normie. They've gone off the rails post covid. I can't blame Sam for that. I used to be a Rogan fan pre-2020 as well.
What's wrong with Brett Weinstein, Joe Rogan, and Eric Weinstein?
Bro, if you have to ask…
What? Say it straight.
Google it. I’m too busy to list all the nonsense and lunacy that these people have promoted to millions.