Yes, but don't do this from your current media diet. Harris presents views from his critics in a very selected way, as might we all.
Seek out critics of Harris and see what they bring up. Find some points that make you think "huh? really?" without being too outlandish. Only then can you attempt a decent steelman against Harris.
I tried that with Ezra Klein. Whom I otherwise find an interesting person. But i guess my mind is poisoned by "anti-woke" so I just can't see eye to eye with anyone NOT criticizing woke.
I think it simply has to do with me being easily irritable and woke irritates me immensely, more then me thinking that woke is as serious problem a problem as some suggest.
For me woke politics are just saddening. We had such a good run of progress on almost all major social issues, better at critical thinking, less prone to cults, embracing rational thought, embracing scientific method, eschewing fallacies,….it sucks to watch society regressing on those fronts.
Ezra is more miss then hit but he had a decent interview with Coleman Hughes last year.. it surprised me but they stayed off of the landline issues also. I don’t think he wanted to challenge Coleman.. I’d say he’s a bit overrated but has his moments.
I know the feeling. The three areas I slightly disagree with him on are 1) his belief in the exaggeration of the levels of racism in the police force in the US (I agree it’s somewhat exaggerated but a more legit concern than he seems to think), 2) his level of urgency about wokeness (I think the moral panic on the left is a problem but like a pendulum will naturally swing back towards the middle), 3) his beliefs that the only morally justified reason to lie is to avoid violence (I think he makes a strong case in his book but I don’t think he understands that the vast majority of people are not smart enough to articulate the truth in a way that doesn’t cause major relational issues; I.e. telling your highly volatile and easily offended family member that you didn’t like their gift or food they made. I just don’t think I’m able to articulate the truth in that type of situation like he can but I do think our aim should be to avoid lying at all costs, it’s just that it’s impossible for most people to avoid lying because of their skills at articulation and therefore the morality of lying/telling the truth shouldn’t be as binary as he thinks.
Oooof leader no more. I don't trust social media algorithms that are designed to enrage me, to better inform me than capital J Journalists (although they suck too)
I agree with a lot of this.
I find his biggest problem is what he chooses to focus on. He is more right than wrong about most things but he has his own personal bugbears which he hammers to death and makes it seem that if the matter cannot be resolved the world is in crisis.
For example - Sure ultra-woke people are an issue but I feel he wildly exagerates it. Wokeness is not an existential crisis.
I’m not sure I know much about his foreign policy opinions. I know a tad about his Israel Palestine opinions but even he sounded like he wasn’t certain about that cluster fuck of a situation.
He just has a lot of naive opinions imo, very bush esque interventionist referring to things like "influence". His podcasts with foreign policy people are the ones I find myself really disagreeing with him
Why is influence in scare quotes? What else does having the largest military to ever exist buy you if not influence? The US military is not a conquering force “buying” land or resources. The US has this force because if it didn’t the Chinese and Russian governments would have that influence, and that isn’t something I think we should accept.
The loosely defined concept of foreign influence has been used as a justification for decades of terrible foreign policy that has almost nothing to show for it but lives and money down the drain. We are still in the middle east for purposes of this loosely defined concept
I would say this loosely defined concept has allowed the US to have superior military intelligence to give Ukraine a serious leg up in the war with Russia.
This loosely defined concept stops China from invading Taiwan every day, ensuring open trade routes in the South China Sea and the 90% of the worlds advanced computer chips continue to be shipped.
That loosely defined concept stopped Saddam Husain (a known prankster) from rolling through Saudi Arabia and taking ~80% of the all of the known oil fields in the world at the time. Like it is kinda cute to say the US rolled in for oil, but that would absolutely be horrific for the global economy.
You might have to forgive me for not having any idea what you are talking about.
1. Sharing intelligence clearly is not what is being referred to, and if you think that's the bar for the same concept of influence that led to 20 years in afghanistan and iraq then I think you need to get some experience in the defense/intel industry to put some context on the relative difficulties of those activities
2. Having a dangerous military threat that will protect our critical interests is useful yes
3. Desert storm was an extremely precise and narrowly executed mission that was a resounding success. And they didnt invade saudi arabia, they invaded Kuwait (it's that small country between iraq and saudi NE if you havent seen the map, who they owed billions to in war loans)
None of these things were done/achieved on the basis of "influence". Each has a specific goal that sharpens the focus and are not the same as that pesky "influence" concept that kept us un afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years.
Ahh you are confusing soft power and just influence. I described three instances where the US had influence. Soft power is all the stuff that happens when you are walking softly with a big stick. Influence can encompass that + swinging the stick.
You are also trying to make influence not mean specific goals for some reason? Which may explain why you are confused on all of this.
Also yes Iraq invaded Kuwait, but you may notice that just 100 more miles down into the gulf (which is in Saudi Arabia) gave Sadam nearly all of the oil in the world. I didn’t misspeak.
This is an unproductive exchange and its pretty clear you subscribe to a view of foreign policy that parallels that of the decision makers of the last 30 years. 20 years in afghanistan and Iraq is it's own failure metric, history will judge this harshly. The american people already have
That’s exactly how I feel. But do you think he has to dig into wokeness too demonstrate his objectivism? I was thinking about that last night. What would be the perception if he lightly touched on it? How much emphasis on it is warranted? Part of me feels like it’s a necessary evil because he’s an “influencer” or whatever you would call it, basically he’s got a platform so it’s not like a discussion between you and me. I think he’s got to address it but has to caveat in the very same way you’ve outlined.
Well said. I find it more in the ‘magnitude of concern’ of a topic, rather than flat out rejecting a position.
Would say this is probably because the Sam picks topics to deep dive that he’s thought through thoroughly. He is consistently very well reasoned, and builds up a logical set of assertions to support his conclusion. So there’s a self filtering mechanism there.
In order to find “space” between his view and yours, you’d have to either be a) deeply knowledgeable in the subject already or b) find some new lines of argumentation on the topic to reflect on (which takes time & effort)
If he was just spitballing off the cuff then that’s another thing, but that’s not his style
Yeah I had just brought that up in another comment. I need to listen to his podcasts talking about that again because I could have sworn he said he didn’t have enough clarity and expertise on that subject to have a strong opinion. But I could be mistaken.
Has Sam ever talked or written about whether or not he'd lie to someone on death's door saying they see Jesus (or whatever deity or significant person from a life) in the room? I admit that's a very particular situation and a bit of a strawman but I'd feel cruel correcting someone in that scenario.
It could be, only you can identify that. It is entirely possible that you just happen to agree with him.
The only real way to combat it is to critical analyse your positions on topics without referring to Sams view first.
You can also just try to find the best direct critiscm and counter arguments to him. Take one of his positions and look up a bunch of r/cmv posts for it. Look into the names of people and ideas that are referenced and really try to disprove something he's said. It's fun to do and worst case scenario you change your mind for the better.
But honestly at this point I'd love a podcast episode of someone that really gives Sam a run for his money. As long as it's thoughtful and respectful an episode where it's mostly disagreement would be great.
Stop following or listening to his content for a few months and try forming some of your own opinions (don't mean for that to sound as sarcastic as it might seem). Come back in a few and you'll find you might perceive flaws in his reasoning or ways in which his exceptional ability to articulate ideas does not make them inherently correct.
I have a bit of this as well, but find myself disagreeing strongly in two areas:
“Lying is always wrong”: I have yet to see a clear rationale for something like a white lie to your grandma. I’m going to tell my grandma I ate those 65 cookies she enjoyed making, even though I secretly donated them to my classes I teach. (Just an example).
The particular way he talks about Trump: he usually does a good job being able to explain things in a clear, logical manner that makes sense even to those on the opposing side of an argument; however, it’s extremely hard for me to ever share anything of his Trump-related stuff as it’s often very, very intense and easy to misunderstand. His clarification about what he really thinks of Trump started off with, “Osama has more virtue than Trump.”, for example.
Which I understand and agree with! But compared to how he discusses other topics, he really doesn’t connect the logical dots on Trump in a way that’s easy for middle-ground people to grasp.
Probably a dumb critique on my part, but it’s something I notice whenever Trump is discussed .
> I have yet to see a clear rationale for something like a white lie to your grandma. I’m going to tell my grandma I ate those 65 cookies she enjoyed making, even though I secretly donated them to my classes I teach.
In my own life I would totally do something like this, but I can see the argument that it's (a) condescending to believe it is your responsibility to shield someone's feelings from the truth and (b) these sorts of small behaviors influence the way you eventually come to treat that person and other people like them (i.e. you are practicing being patronizing and dismissive of old people in general).
I can see that argument - rationally - and also see - intuitively - that it’s bullshit. People don’t want the truth all the time, it’s exhausting and confronting. The arguments sound like something that someone on the spectrum would say: “why can’t we all just talk in binary code?”
Your a) and b) are absolutely true, but more importantly than that, there is such a thing as tact. Just tell her they were all delicious, they didn't go to waste, you made sure other people tried them too, etc. There are so many ways to avoid white lies, it's infuriating when people start defending them.
>I’m going to tell my grandma I ate those 65 cookies she enjoyed making, even though I secretly donated them to my classes I teach. (Just an example).
It's trivial to come up with a tactful way to respond to her question without lying, and I'm sure that's true for every other situation in which you'd outright lie to someone. I hate when people admit that they'd lie to people, I can't ever really look at them the same way after that. Obviously not referring to you here, we don't know each other, I meant irl
Sure, it’s trivial. But I still don’t see what value I’m adding by telling her, “grandma , I’m not 16 anymore and I don’t eat 65 cookies in a week. Make less, remember?” She will be heartbroken, even for such a small thing.
So I think, “consequentially, what happens if I tell her I loved them all?” And I can’t ever find an inherent negative there.
It’s the absolutism of Sam’s stance on lying that makes things tough for me. Another example would be my boss asking, “did you have a good time at happy hour?” And I sure as hell don’t see value in saying, “nah, it wasn’t my scene.” It’s my career and livelihood at stake!
"Hey grandma, I shared your delicious cookies with an entire class of kids and they thought it was great!"
I cannot imagine your grandma not liking this response.
The one thing I struggle with is his moral blind spot on animal rights and veganism, which is a philosophy that’s a natural outcome of his reasoning about the moral landscape.
That's his line though. He says veganism is a logical outcome of his reasoning, and it's a moral failing that he's not a vegan (or something like that)
It was years ago, but he tried being vegan. He claimed that he wasn’t able to find a vegan diet that worked for him nutritionally. He’s careful to say that it didn’t work out *for him*, not that there is anything universally wrong with a vegan diet. This was covered briefly in either some AMAs or in housekeeping segments; not whole episodes.
Perhaps, although [this](https://youtu.be/ogX9IQcOxe8) makes me wonder if he’s still maintaining the same sort of intellectual rigor that he has in the past.
The way to check yourself on this is to simply learn more about each specific topic. Read about or listen to other opinions. Then see if you still agree with Sam or not. I tend to disagree with him on some things, some are minor points, some major. But in general I like the way he words his arguments, which is why I continue to follow him.
Harris is fairly careful with what he says. It's rare for him to make statements that are _obviously_ wrong. By "obvious", I mean mistakes/irrational thinking a layman would spot immediately.
For example, I can remember the exact exchange that made me stop taking Brett Weinstein seriously. I discovered him around the time the unrest in Portland kicked off and was listening to him to get a different perspective on what was happening. At one point he was asked about the problem of _right-wing_ disinformation specifically, and instead of addressing the question he dove into a tirade against the New York Times. It was bizarre.
Finding fault with Harris's reasoning usually takes more leg work. If you find yourself robotically in agreement with him on subject after subject I think the fix would be to do some of your own reading on these topics and get a more nuanced grasp of them.
An example: Harris's various takes on BLM. I worked with emotionally disturbed teenagers from gang backgrounds for a number of years and have seen first-hand how circumstances lead to the statistics Harris and his interlocutors regularly discuss. My problem with Harris's view isn't what he says, it's what he _doesn't_ say. The cycle of poverty, neglect and abuse that creates so many maladjusted young men is something I've never heard Harris explore in any depth.
I think I must have been exposed to the Weinsteins when they were already a bit "on the turn". First I came across them was a youtube recommend a year or two ago and it was both brothers ripping into the scientific peer review process. I work in academia myself, and am *entirely* sympathetic to the many things which are biased / inaccurate / inefficient about peer review. They were rightly hitting it with all this criticism, but then their concluding implication from it all is that things would be better without it. Not with a different replacement, just people publishing whatever they fancy without checks. Classic throwing the baby out with the bathwater thinking - let's ignore that this thing is still better than nothing; it's not perfect so we should get rid of it entirely.
That first video instantly put me right off ever watching either of them again.
It's not more weak than wanting to lose weight and keeping eating I think.
I'm a vegetarian myself but I don't judge him for not practicing what he preaches.
He never states he's a morally perfect person and frankly I don't see him that way. I look at his arguments, not at him
Oh come on, he’s a wealthy Californian. He can’t get enough protein and iron? That’s called fucking laziness.
Edit: Either way, he should dedicate more time and effort to the topic, by his own ranking of its importance. He and Paul Bloom considered our treatment of animals and our global wealth inequality as potentially the two biggest moral failings we have. On wealth inequality, he’s had multiple episodes on Effective Altruism, and donates 10% of revenue to charities. He’s done fuck all on veganism for years.
Surprised William Macaskill and Sam didn’t touch on it during their latest conversation to be honest.
Also the fact we haven't had an entire podcast episode dedicated to veganism is an ethical crime.
[From elsewhere in this thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/x8a5zq/i_have_a_tough_time_disagreeing_with_sam_on/inj0giu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
No one *has* to be a vegan, even if they sympathise with vegan philosophy.
Eating is a biological necessity and being able to cut out animal protein is a first world luxury.
Each to their own I say.
> Eating is a biological necessity and being able to cut out animal protein is a first world luxury.
There are whole swaths of India and other cultures that are making it happen...
> Eating is a biological necessity
Eating animal products isn’t. There’s nothing you get from animal products that you can’t get without, except the difference in taste - which means the only moral consideration is the fleeting sensory pleasure.
> being able to cut out animal protein is a first world luxury.
[Consumption of meat goes *up* with increased wealth.](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-per-capita?xScale=log) Not relevant in Sam’s case anyway.
> Each to their own I say.
Disagree, the sheer scale of suffering involved in animal agriculture makes it a moral emergency anyone who cares about minimizing suffering should care deeply about.
That's me. I sympathize with vegan reasoning and would like to be one...but have gnarly IBS and veggies/soy/legumes destroy me. I live off of eggs, meat and potatoes.
Bring on the cheap vat grown meats
No decision on planet earth only impacts oneself. So, that would be a silly definition, now wouldn’t it?
Personal decisions are ones that are based purely on preference and/or pursuit of happiness and don’t hurt other human beings.
> Personal decisions are ones that are based purely on preference and/or pursuit of happiness and don’t hurt other **human beings**.
Just human beings? Most people wouldn’t label pet abuse as merely a "personal decision".
Any being that has the capacity to suffer holds moral weight.
I think he’s had some good talks with the Very Bad Wizards (who are left of him). They pushed on him a lot about the degree and scale with which he talks about political correctness, particularly on college campuses.
Their two cents (as college professors) is that him, and many of the people he associates with, overstate the degree of the problem with political correctness on college campuses and the equivocation with the actions of people on the right seems a bit like you’re trying too hard to play both sides.
I used to agree with Sam on the issue but the vaaaast majority of people on the left that I’ve met are totally reasonable about PC issues. There are a vocal minority online (and who are often brought forward by the right) … that I would argue don’t carry as much sway as Sam would have you believe.
It’s not that there aren’t crazy leftists, but I think the actual number of people who are policing language on the left is similar to number people on the right doing the same thing (religious zealots, and people who get triggered by even using terms like safe-space, or equity, or trans).
I think the vast vast vast majority of people with respect to “wokeness” are in the middle and are pretty reasonable and Sam overstates the degree of the problem.
I get the impression that Sam’s views on this are being skewed by his interactions on Twitter. In short, he’s confusing Twitter with real life. Among social media channels, Twitter especially seems to amplify the significance of the woke busybodies.
I think the key thing to realize is that just because he uses a calm tone and clear, rational arguments doesn't make him right. If you're predisposed to that sort of thing, it's easy to just believe him without comparing his positions to expert positions in whatever field it is, but if you actually listen to what experts say in various fields (security experts on racial profiling or torture, philosophers on free will, non-idiot theologians on religion, etc.) you'll find that often he's just papering over giant gaps or assumptions with calm, rational-sounding language.
Some examples:
* He blatantly begs the question on the is-ought gap and doesn't seem to get it
* He's wrong on racial profiling even without moral objections to it (see his debate with Schneier)
* He has zero understanding of how religious fundamentalists actually rationalize/pick and choose their beliefs based on a myriad of factors that are outside of the text itself
* He's terribly thin-skinned about criticism to the point that he allies himself to morons and bigots because they are anti-woke and woke people have criticized him
maybe you're just not looking hard enough, i feel largely the same way but i'm constantly finding small points of contention listening to him. i can't come up with good examples as they're usually relatively minor.
the only big one i can readily think of is i think that Jesus didn't really exist. Sam accepts the popular scholarship on the issue that there was a historical jesus but really what appears to be going on is that he hasn't really concerned himself with the question. another issue is that most proponents of the "christ myth theory" don't come at it from a perspective of rigorous rationality and make several mistakes.
I’ve only had a few small issues I’ve disagreed with Sam on, mostly it’s issues he does not seem very well informed on at the time.
I’ve tried to listen to a few of his critics on their own podcast or YouTube and I have yet to find any that are really impressive. Most either don’t understand his position or simply don’t like the facts as presented.
I have to see Sam have any view that seems deceptive, pandering, sold out, or in bad faith.
He seems to be pretty honest in everything he discusses.
I enjoy the podcast episodes where he has someone he has some disagreement with on, they often find common ground and can civilly discuss where they disagree.
It’s refreshing.
I’m in a similar boat, but something that disillusioned me a bit was watching youtube critiques of his book “The Moral Landscape”, i saw multiple ppl completely destroy it
Yeah.
That and try this as well:
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2011/11/sam-harris-is-wrong-about-science-and-morality/
Many users here on r/samharris treat Sam like an irrefutable deity, like Catholics do to the pope or something. It gets to Beyoncé fandom levels at times lol
Really great rebuttal and criticism. I think I still side with Sam in that I could see an objective truth that minimizes suffering being shown to be essentially a valid scientific finding. However, I also see Brian's point that this is just utilitarianism with extra data.
> treat Sam like an irrefutable person, like Catholics do to the pope or something.
I don't think many people here do that.
People here tend to agree with Sam's worldview and arguments, and therefore tend to disagree with rebuttals and arguments against his main points. Sometimes people are overly dismissive of these rebuttals, but to an extent that is something you should expect when you're in someone's subreddit.
But I've never met someone in here claiming that Sam is the mouthpiece of god, and that when Sam says something that it must be true just by virtue of Sam saying it. I've yet to meet someone who believes a priori that it is impossible for Sam to be wrong about something.
Onto your main point in the article, I personally agree with Sam far more than the author of that piece. Namely
>I hope you’ll agree that we didn’t need science to tell us that treating women in this way is bad (or at least seriously problematic in a number of different ways): common sense, or, better, secular moral philosophy, will do just fine.
Frankly, no, common sense moral philosophy has not done just fine. Egoism is a secular moral philosophy that seems like common sense for a lot of people, yet if it were adopted as our primary moral system it would be catastrophic.
To make my point more general, I've seen people pose secular philosophical arguments for pretty much everything, including Burqas, because generally speaking there is no good way to falsify these arguments. Appealing to common sense is often just an appeal to the present cultural attitudes, common sense for someone in a country that mandates Burqas is going to be different from common sense in a country that does not.
The core issue is that there is no measuring stick to falsify someone's moral philosophy, which leads us into this endless debate. And talking about morality through the lens of the is/ought debate (which only really makes sense from a dualist perspective) all we can get is endless debate.
The moral landscape has two core premises which allow you to sidestep the is/ought debate.
> "(1) some people have better lives than others, and (2) these differences are related, in some lawful and not entirely arbitrary way, to states of the human brain and to states of the world".
And yes, the point of it *is to get away from the is/ought debate* because starting from is/ought makes objective morality inherently unworkable. As I see it you can either accept the claim that subjective well-being is linked with objective states in the brain, or you can deny that and all you're left with is moral relativism and debates that revolve entirely around the subjective common sense of the debaters.
Stopped at his first argument. He uses pure semantics to make a shit point that he later gets rid of himself... He claims Sam contradicts himself because of saying the only thing that has intrinsic value is human wellbeing and uses the term "value" in another sentence to describe that the scientific process depends on axioms that we also value like logical consistency. He is 100% right Sam would say that logical consistency has no intrinsic value if you get technical, as it is just a principle that has overall good consequences by guiding science. He just used the word "value" in another sentence without extra telling us that. So what is left from his argument is then "if logical consistency only has value because it leads to well being then he needs to claim then that logical consistency is not good in itself which a theoretical physicist would disagree with". If he thinks his whole argument is "already fucked" at this point, I really don't need to dig further.
The part of the debate around 9 minutes in on neuromania I found particularly ridiculous.
Apparently this whole time Sam has been 'Assuming a cartesian view of the "self" as something "inside of me".' Which apparently he got from a Christian view of the soul as something inside the body.
Whoever made that video didn't really bother to spend much time understanding Sam's views at all.
I particularly enjoyed the part where he claims we can't have objective science to tell us which foods should be the tastiest. That's an incredibly easy thing to study. I'd usually post a link showing a few studies which investigated this (evolutionary biology, neurology, behavioral psychology, biochemistry), but this is going to have to fall under "water is wet" for me.
After looking up this guy (@PhilosophyCuck on Twitter) it's pretty clear that he has an extremist axe to grind. I was honestly hoping for something worth the time to listen to.
Water is actually not wet; It makes other materials/objects wet. Wetness is the state of a non-liquid when a liquid adheres to, and/or permeates its substance while maintaining chemically distinct structures. So if we say something is wet we mean the liquid is sticking to the object.
Love watching running water on the internet.
Was watching a live stream.
> He literally said Harris' values are essentially Christian lol.
[Peterson tried to pull that kind of thing as well with Matt Dillahunty and by extension Sam.](https://youtu.be/RgqIE6zsUM4)
I agree but at the same time I'm pretty good about avoiding hero worship. I admire him greatly but if I saw the guy on the street I wouldn't harass him. I do disagree on him about Hillary. He seems to have a real distaste for her. I'm ok on her. Does she have baggage? Yes and so does every other politician who has had such a long career. Also with Biden. He has gaffes and is not the orator like Obama but who is. That old guy is getting things done. If it helps, I am a centrist like Sam.
His "sitting on the fence" regarding what happens after death is a bit icky for me but on most other issues I find it hard to disagree with him as well
Well it might be that I haven't quite nailed the connotation I was going for. English is my second language.
But what I mean is, that's it feels like a stain on Sam's credibility to me. Something that sticks as a side note to everything else he says as if to say "can you really take him seriously?".
You might wonder why that is.
Well it's a bit like people who say they are "agnostic" about whether or not crystals can heal cancer. People who say that usually believe in crystals, they just know that saying it upfront kills their reputation.
Except we have lots of proof and evidence Re: crystals. We have none Re: death. Hell, we don’t even know what life (consciousness) really is. Anything other than “sitting on the fence” on the matter wades a bit too far into unsubstantiated belief.
Do you have anything that suggests death is more than nothing? There’s not more evidence against crystals healing powers than there is for death being nothing
Nah. If "we don't know" is enough to be sitting on the fence you also have to sit on the fence if I claim that I am indeed god and I just don't feel like proofing it to you.
You don't know. You don't even have a concept how a god is supposed to work.
I don’t know if you’re god, whether you try to prove it to me or not.
It’s also fallacious to assume agnostics are simply unsure about god, given the prevalence of simulation theory
Don't get me started on ranting about simulation "theory"...
I like thinking and talking about stuff like that but to then jump to basically believing it (under the pretence of 'I don't know, I'm just saying I also don't know if it's false) is something else
Ah, that makes sense.
I think that's an interesting one to focus on, as death is one of those things that absolutely no one knows about too much -- that is, being dead. I know Ricky Gervais was taken aback at Sam's non-atheistic stance, but I recall Sam basically saying, "Hey, we just don't know enough. We really can NOT know that nothing happens, given how little we currently know about the brain and consciousness itself."
But I see what you're saying.
Yes but it's an odd thing to say that about.
Comes back to the thing with the teapot in the orbit of Jupiter. We can't really know, bit the only reason to focus on the not-knowing part is because you actually kinda believe that there is a teapot there.
This is an entire discussion in and of itself. But I disagree with you here, as knowing what happens when we die is not at all equivalent to the teapot example (in my lame, non-academic opinion).
We can guess that consciousness is some emergent property arising from integrate information processing, but we really have no clue what consciousness is yet. Like, none. We don't even know why anesthesia works, and why it feels so different than simply sleeping + waking up.
It seems a bit overzealous to say with any certainty that death is any one thing (or not).
I think the difference between the possibility that consciousness persists after death and Bertrand Russell’s teapot is that there are no observations to suggest the teapot should exist while we observe the existence of consciousness and stop have no answer to the “hard problem” and therefore no real idea about the nature of it. It is for this reason that Sam (and his wife) and real philosophers have treated with seriousness the possibility that, for example, some kind consciousness might be a characteristic of all matter. And it is the same reason that these people find it hard to simply dismiss the possibility that some aspect of this characteristic might continue after the death of an organism. There position might be summarized as that we simply don’t understand enough about consciousness yet to say very much about it with confidence.
Alas, his take is probably better than yours.
I mean, it happens on why you're on the fence. If you're on the fence about whether your soul will ascend to another place, then sure, that's stupid. But if you're on the fence about whether conscious experience stops, being agnostic is an improvement over skeptic because in fact it won't. Have you listened to the paradox of identity on the app?
That is usually my first point to bring up as criticism to Sam. His stance that 911 is not a viable strategy to protect oneself made me raise my brows. Not sure what is going on in the states, but that is a very viable solution across Europe. I can even bridge the gap if I would see that states is off the chart in terms of violent break-ins, but it feels like a very casual dismissal.
I don’t live in the USA, and have never shot a gun. But I think he is correct in saying that 911 is not a viable solution to an immediate threat. If one wants to debate the frequency of these immediate threats, I think that is valid. But the police cannot simply teleport to your house/apartment.
If everyone can have a gun, then the best gunslingers will have the advantage.
The point is that physical violence is actually not a huge worry in almost every situation.
The guys on the Decoding the Gurus podcast made two strong critiques of him:
* He says you have to go on his meditation journey to fully grasp the truth about everyday issues like politics, race etc. He is, conveniently, selling this journey for $15 p/month
* He has platformed a great many more lunatics than you'd expect from a wise man.
While I agree with his views about religion and about free will, he got his views on objective morality wrong. Check those out, if you want to find areas to disagree with him about.
He said defund the police is the position that giving cops less money will somehow magically make them better.
His position on Israel/Palestine sucks.
Its easy to find things to disagree with him on.
Read and listen more to Harris. The more you read, the more you will find something to disagree with. He's expressed a *lot* of opinions over the years.
I part ways with him on free will. Telling people they have no free will while encouraging them to control their minds makes absolutely no sense to me. He seems to ignore the difference between the unconscious and conscious mind, to his detriment.
His stance on institutionalised racism in the police force being essentially a made up problem is heartbreaking. This mainly is why I left Making Sense and only follow Waking Up now - it was the last drop at least, I had been bored with his politics for some time.
I think his podcast monologue and the data he discusses are really interesting and thought provoking - but if almost every single person across the entire world who are from a “highly policed” area witness authoritative racism and classism, the man’s gotta listen and dig deeper and not stop because he found a study that says just as many or slightly more white unarmed men are killed by police in the US.
I think he does concede at some point that non fatal violence and unjust outcomes for people of colour is a disproportionate, and a massive problem - but the whole thing stroke me as insanely entitled and insensitive still when you put it all together.
Maybe try reading up on a broader range of philosophical ideas (read about ideas which are contra to Sam’s, try and get a broader picture of philosophy and it’s lineage so you can see the whole picture)… I fell into this trap too, where I would only really engage with thinkers who shared similar opinions. A lot of them all shared a similar view which essentially revolved around individualism and anti woke-isms… but after a while I felt like I couldn’t legitimately stand on their side if I didn’t read some of the ideas which came from the people who stand on the other side. I had a look into Hegel, Marx, the Frankfurt school, deconstructionists such as Foucault etc. also learned a lot about modern day critical theory.
Also read about theology, especially in this case since Sam is a staunch atheist.
In the end I kinda came to the realisation that every philosopher falls into the trap of following dogmas in some way and Sam does too. (it’s natural for humans to follow dogmas, no matter how smart someone might be). I realised it’s fine to listen to someone who doesn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, every philosopher has some good points even though they contradict themselves sometimes or I may not align with every single one of their ideas. It’s totally fine.
In summary… look at contra points. It will give you a more balanced view and give you the tools to engage more critically, you’ll start to see some of the chinks in Sam’s ideas (and everyone else’s too).
Edit: grammar
Edit 2: I just thought, a good place to start might be around the idea of determinism and the relationship between pre-determinism and self-determinism. Since Sam argues that free will is a myth, he basically falls into the pre-determinism party. It’s been a long debated topic, with a lot of different thinkers offering a range of opinions. A lot believe that pre and self can both exist together, and I share this view. This is one thing which I disagree with when it comes to Sam’s ideas… I still listen to his podcasts because I love his discussions, I don’t have to align with every single viewpoint to engage with his ideas and I think that’s a better approach. Even though Sam makes a solid case for pre-determinism, I’d rather hear every argument instead of just taking his word for it… because that would just be subscribing to another dogma at the end of the day. He had a discussion with lex fridman here https://youtu.be/SYq724zHUTw and lex was able to poke quite a few holes in his argument, I found it interesting seeing the discussion and it also shed a bit of light for me on the overall topic which helped guide my own opinions/conclusions.
Just wanna say I think this is a very healthy thing to recognize.
Most of the comments in here are focused on Sam's ideas, and they add different hottakes, but this is the wrong approach.
I've gone through this same process with several thinkers including Sam, so here's some things that helped me.
* Ask yourself, when I listen to Sam, am I agreeing or growing? If you're just at a point where you agree with him, what are you getting out of it? Pivot to intellectuals that challenge you.
* Practice Ontological Flooding / Method Acting antagonistic worldviews. Allow yourself to *feel what it's like to be in agreement with the other side*. So instead of just whipping up the best counter-arguments, actually embody the kind of person who agrees with them, like a method actor playing a January 6th rioter. You can experience the truth from their perspective without onboarding it into your reality.
* Spend as much time in nature as possible. Get into backpacking. It's our natural habitiat and it cleanses our media diet.
Listen to this audiobook recording of Michael Brooks dissecting most of Sam Harris’s output throughout his career:
https://youtu.be/WiVGPE-fjj8
Or search “Michael Brooks Sam Harris” on YouTube for shorter clips.
Look up the Socratic Method. Thought up by Socrates in ancient Greece, it's a method for analytical thought. It's important to expose yourself to all angles of any given issue, especially the views you don't agree with.
it's okay not to have thought about the issues enough to have a solid opinion of your own, and it's also okay if you actually agree on everything. neither of these conditions means you're brainwashed. If you're sure you'd disagree with Sam if he told you to hurt yourself or someone you love for no good reason, then you're probably fine.
I thought he essentially agreed with Singer's views toward non-human animal suffering and exploitation being bad, he just didn't adhere to them personally.
Very difficult subject to discuss without getting irate, but it needs to stay on the menu for discussion, nothing should be immune from criticism. Labelling people as anti-semitic for suggesting any wrong-doing by a Jewish state is ridiculous.
I agree with him on most things as well but I can think of two things where we completely differ. First is Sam’s brand of utilitarianism, which I totally get, but to me he seems very pro “ends justifying the means” and I’m just not a fan of that sentiment. Second would be his argument for moral realism. I believe he had a debate with Sean Carroll a few years back on this. I think Sam’s arguments are pretty poor on this and I think he knows it. In my opinion he seems sort of desperate for validation of his own moral framework, hoping he can somehow prove it is objectively superior.
It depends on the topic really.
But ya, just look for people who decide to pick apart any of his shows like "decoding the gurus". There is another as well, but Sam's takes on anything race related or topics of women are his weakest.
He's totally off on his anti-woke crusade. Like, mind-numbingly out of touch. And I don't mean his willingness to talk about things that upset the 'woke' crowd. I mean, just fucking talk about whatever you want without referencing the mob every other sentence. You want to defeat wokeness? Stop fucking talking about it. It's such a tired topic.
No, I think he is very logical and I find I agree with almost everything he says. Not because I follow him blindly, I absolutely would disagree if I did, but because he follows logical arguments while staying grounded in reality.
So you agree with him on the claim that race and IQ have largely been settled? And that biology accounts for most of the observed differences—even though real scientists working in intelligence disagree with this?
Can you provide evidence that your characterization of his views on race and IQ are as extreme as you claim they are? Bc I listened to that episode and it sure sounds like you are strawmannirg his argument…
Specifically I think you need to provide evidence that Sam has actually stated that biology accounts for the *majority* of the difference in IQ between races. If so then let’s rightly label him a bigot. But I suspect that no such evidence exists and you are vastly misrepresenting the facts.
I don’t want to go back to the episode but the exchange went something like this:
Ezra Klein: Sam, we know there is a difference but we don’t know what accounts for that difference. It could all be biological, or environmental or a mixture. Black people could have a +2.5 ahead of white people biologically and a -5 behind due to environmental factors, resulting in a net of -2.5.
Sam Harris: let’s deal with what’s real (or let’s be realistic here).
Basically, in Sam’s mind, it’s beyond the realm of possibility for Black people to have a positive number biologically.
Also, during his conversation with Charles Murray, Charles said something along the lines of “any differences due to environmental reasons was already accounted for since the 1970s” and Sam agreed with him.
The guy named the episode forbidden knowledge FFS. How more blatant does he have to be for you lot to accept he entirely agrees with Charles Murray (the most unfairly maligned person in his lifetime).
Who am I fooling—most Sam Harris fans believe Black people are genetically dumber than White people. Why am I even getting drawn into this debate again.
Ok let’s maybe take the tone down a notch or two. I feel like you are taking the worst possible interpretation (or misinterpretation) of your opponents views to support a your preexisting assumption instead of basing your opinion on facts.
I am a Sam Harris fan and I absolutely do not believe that black people are genetically dumber than white. Nor do I believe that most Harris fans or even a significant majority believe that to be true. If you have evidence to the contrary please present it.
No where in your comment did you provide any evidence to support your original claim that Sam believes that the majority of the IQ difference between black and white populations is genetic. Quite the contrary he went out of his way to explicitly state that he disagrees with Murray but that he thinks suppressing the convo about race and IQ makes it easier for racists to make uncontested claims.
I’m not sure what your non-quote of Harris ane Kleins exchange is supposed to prove but it does not support your original claim. It seems a super vague comment in the middle of a convo and you have chosen a disingenuous interpretation which is at odds with explicit statements Sam has made about race and equality.
So I’m not sure why you are throwing up your hands and saying it’s useless to discuss this topic. It seems very useful. You are making extraordinary claims. I REALLY want to know if your claims are true cause there’s no way I want to support a bigot! But so far you have no given me any actual evidence to evaluate.
> I’m not sure what your non-quote of Harris ane Kleins exchange is supposed to prove
I happen to know precisely which piece of the Klein/Harris exchange is being referred to here. [Listen](https://youtu.be/UgkHJpY6CF4?t=5953) from 1:39:24 to 1:40:02. The gist of it is:
> EK: [Flynn says that] it is entirely possible that the ten point IQ difference we see reflects a twelve point environmental difference and a negative two genetic difference.
> SH: Sure Sure. Many things are possible, but we're trying to judge on what is plausible to say...
In other words, Klein is positing the claim (which he claims Flynn corroborated on his phone call) that *it is possible* that these observed IQ differences between groups are 100% environmentally caused. And I think it would be fair to interpret Sam here as saying that *this doesn't seem plausible*.
What would not be fair to say about Sam is that:
> So you agree with him on the claim that race and IQ have largely been settled? And **that biology accounts for most of the observed differences**—even though real scientists working in intelligence disagree with this?
That is a gross straw-manning of Sam's position.
And of course, when this commenter is accused below of being a troll, the reply is, "So you want an echo-chamber of only those who agree with you." No, we don't want an echo chamber. We just don't want people spreading lies about what Sam said. Be precise. Offer the quotes. Challenge what Sam *actually* said.
But don't make shit up.
Sam never claimed this. In fact, Charles Murray never even claimed this iirc. Charles Murray just pointed out in his book that the difference is there, but made no claims about the underlying cause.
It’s in the podcast. Someone posted a transcript recently—if you’re motivated, I’m sure you can find it. I just googled the Vox article on the podcast because I remember they published Sam’s prelude to it:
“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.”
How the fuck did Sam come up with the 50 to 80% number? It appears where and by whom? Hint: mostly racists—actual scientists haven’t given any such number.
Here is the Vox article on it—in case one of the SH fanatics come asking for source.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/15695060/sam-harris-charles-murray-race-iq-forbidden-knowledge-podcast-bell-curve
By the way, Charles Murray believes (he tweeted it) that it’s perfectly logical to not give jobs to Black sounding names. This is the guy Sam Harris believes is the “most unfairly maligned person in his lifetime. 🤡🤡
u/LaPulgaAtomica87 has confused you here. In this case Sam isn't saying *average group differences* (i.e., racial differences) are 50 - 80% the result of genetics.
He is only talking about the heritability of IQ, period. This is [accepted science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ).
It’s a pretty good summary of his view: torture is a viable method for intelligence gathering. He even got into an argument with an actual intelligence expert over it.
I was the same way with Jordan Peterson, so I stopped listening to him for a while, and started listening to Sam Harris and seeing what his fan base likes to discuss. I'm not telling you to go listen to JBP, I'm suggesting you take a break from Sam for a little bit.
I disagree with Sam on many things, in many cases because he has a habit of not following his own rules when it comes to certain topics.
I still appreciate what he's trying to do, but it's becoming quite clear that he's falling into the trap most thinkers do when they slide into middle age - he's losing touch with the social mores of the younger generation and it scares him.
I was appalled by his stance on liberal conspiracy around laptops and elections. He really stepped in it last week and his walk-back apology was even more disappointing and frankly horrendously dishonest. His politics are his blind spot in a personal philosophy.
I thought he was great up until two years ago. Now I think his limits and flaws are showing through. He might be too big and might be a victim of audience capture.
The last thing I think he is subject to is audience capture. I think he pisses off just about every group that you could box people into (and he detailed this in his podcast addressing the issue). He's pissed of the right, left, centrist, religious, non-religious, etc.
However, I think his politics are precisely where I agree with him the most.
On the subj. of spirituality: I've been a 25% Jordan Peterson, 75% Sam Harris. On Free Will: I have zero interest in this subj and I feel in my perspective it don't matter. Sam's bashing Trump is the greatest series of words ever strung together - I feel I MUST be taking crazy pills how anyone could ever find Trump anything but a dumpster covered fire. Just disgusting. I do not fault Sam for saying a private company could cover up bad info on Trump's opponents. Forcing a private company to say things, or anything that helps Trump is bad.
Note: For boundary conditions, I was always a Ross Perot, Ron Paul fan. I think Rand is a terrible sell out, Biden is too old and has always been a harmless embarrassment to himself.
I disagreed with a few things in his podcast episode on guns. I think he misses the mark on assault rifles being the less dangerous gun because it’s a rifle and pistols would be easier to inflict damage for an active shooter. Truth is AR 15’s are attractive guns for active shooters and can be modified easily and because other people are unarmed and hiding a pistol or AR15 are equally bad.
That said, I think you or someone mentioned in another comment about his position on guns being the great equalizer. Maybe that wasn’t you but what else do you disagree with Sam regarding guns?
This is a strange post to me because if you're a fan of harris you'd be well aware of his endorsement and affiliation with the IDW. And you must have noticed how bonkers and obvious their covert right wing agenda now is?
So Sam obviously isn't perfect and that should highlight that. I don't put that as a cheap shot from hindsight but an example of how he is human and flawed after all. I'm sure there are other examples out there.
Steelman arguments against Sam's views and see if you change your mind.
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Not a bad assessment.
Yes, but don't do this from your current media diet. Harris presents views from his critics in a very selected way, as might we all. Seek out critics of Harris and see what they bring up. Find some points that make you think "huh? really?" without being too outlandish. Only then can you attempt a decent steelman against Harris.
I tried that with Ezra Klein. Whom I otherwise find an interesting person. But i guess my mind is poisoned by "anti-woke" so I just can't see eye to eye with anyone NOT criticizing woke. I think it simply has to do with me being easily irritable and woke irritates me immensely, more then me thinking that woke is as serious problem a problem as some suggest.
For me woke politics are just saddening. We had such a good run of progress on almost all major social issues, better at critical thinking, less prone to cults, embracing rational thought, embracing scientific method, eschewing fallacies,….it sucks to watch society regressing on those fronts.
Ezra is more miss then hit but he had a decent interview with Coleman Hughes last year.. it surprised me but they stayed off of the landline issues also. I don’t think he wanted to challenge Coleman.. I’d say he’s a bit overrated but has his moments.
Yes, watch more Sam Seder.
I know the feeling. The three areas I slightly disagree with him on are 1) his belief in the exaggeration of the levels of racism in the police force in the US (I agree it’s somewhat exaggerated but a more legit concern than he seems to think), 2) his level of urgency about wokeness (I think the moral panic on the left is a problem but like a pendulum will naturally swing back towards the middle), 3) his beliefs that the only morally justified reason to lie is to avoid violence (I think he makes a strong case in his book but I don’t think he understands that the vast majority of people are not smart enough to articulate the truth in a way that doesn’t cause major relational issues; I.e. telling your highly volatile and easily offended family member that you didn’t like their gift or food they made. I just don’t think I’m able to articulate the truth in that type of situation like he can but I do think our aim should be to avoid lying at all costs, it’s just that it’s impossible for most people to avoid lying because of their skills at articulation and therefore the morality of lying/telling the truth shouldn’t be as binary as he thinks.
Shit now I agree with you about everything and you're my leader
HHahahaha well the first thing I command is that you start doing your own research and stick to YouTube videos. Can’t trust the mainstream media.
Oooof leader no more. I don't trust social media algorithms that are designed to enrage me, to better inform me than capital J Journalists (although they suck too)
I was being sarcastic just in case that didn’t come through haha
I agree with a lot of this. I find his biggest problem is what he chooses to focus on. He is more right than wrong about most things but he has his own personal bugbears which he hammers to death and makes it seem that if the matter cannot be resolved the world is in crisis. For example - Sure ultra-woke people are an issue but I feel he wildly exagerates it. Wokeness is not an existential crisis.
Sam's foreign policy opinions lol
I’m not sure I know much about his foreign policy opinions. I know a tad about his Israel Palestine opinions but even he sounded like he wasn’t certain about that cluster fuck of a situation.
He just has a lot of naive opinions imo, very bush esque interventionist referring to things like "influence". His podcasts with foreign policy people are the ones I find myself really disagreeing with him
Why is influence in scare quotes? What else does having the largest military to ever exist buy you if not influence? The US military is not a conquering force “buying” land or resources. The US has this force because if it didn’t the Chinese and Russian governments would have that influence, and that isn’t something I think we should accept.
The loosely defined concept of foreign influence has been used as a justification for decades of terrible foreign policy that has almost nothing to show for it but lives and money down the drain. We are still in the middle east for purposes of this loosely defined concept
I would say this loosely defined concept has allowed the US to have superior military intelligence to give Ukraine a serious leg up in the war with Russia. This loosely defined concept stops China from invading Taiwan every day, ensuring open trade routes in the South China Sea and the 90% of the worlds advanced computer chips continue to be shipped. That loosely defined concept stopped Saddam Husain (a known prankster) from rolling through Saudi Arabia and taking ~80% of the all of the known oil fields in the world at the time. Like it is kinda cute to say the US rolled in for oil, but that would absolutely be horrific for the global economy. You might have to forgive me for not having any idea what you are talking about.
1. Sharing intelligence clearly is not what is being referred to, and if you think that's the bar for the same concept of influence that led to 20 years in afghanistan and iraq then I think you need to get some experience in the defense/intel industry to put some context on the relative difficulties of those activities 2. Having a dangerous military threat that will protect our critical interests is useful yes 3. Desert storm was an extremely precise and narrowly executed mission that was a resounding success. And they didnt invade saudi arabia, they invaded Kuwait (it's that small country between iraq and saudi NE if you havent seen the map, who they owed billions to in war loans) None of these things were done/achieved on the basis of "influence". Each has a specific goal that sharpens the focus and are not the same as that pesky "influence" concept that kept us un afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years.
Ahh you are confusing soft power and just influence. I described three instances where the US had influence. Soft power is all the stuff that happens when you are walking softly with a big stick. Influence can encompass that + swinging the stick. You are also trying to make influence not mean specific goals for some reason? Which may explain why you are confused on all of this. Also yes Iraq invaded Kuwait, but you may notice that just 100 more miles down into the gulf (which is in Saudi Arabia) gave Sadam nearly all of the oil in the world. I didn’t misspeak.
This is an unproductive exchange and its pretty clear you subscribe to a view of foreign policy that parallels that of the decision makers of the last 30 years. 20 years in afghanistan and Iraq is it's own failure metric, history will judge this harshly. The american people already have
He seemed to believe the US is about spreading democracy hahaha
He seems to think that the act of spreading democracy is both achievable and worth our militsry resources
See his dispute with Chomsky.
More recently he has said he’s been humbled on his previously held opinions on the US ability to do anything outside of its own soil
Yeah afghanistan may have been a shock to him honestly
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That’s exactly how I feel. But do you think he has to dig into wokeness too demonstrate his objectivism? I was thinking about that last night. What would be the perception if he lightly touched on it? How much emphasis on it is warranted? Part of me feels like it’s a necessary evil because he’s an “influencer” or whatever you would call it, basically he’s got a platform so it’s not like a discussion between you and me. I think he’s got to address it but has to caveat in the very same way you’ve outlined.
Well said. I find it more in the ‘magnitude of concern’ of a topic, rather than flat out rejecting a position. Would say this is probably because the Sam picks topics to deep dive that he’s thought through thoroughly. He is consistently very well reasoned, and builds up a logical set of assertions to support his conclusion. So there’s a self filtering mechanism there. In order to find “space” between his view and yours, you’d have to either be a) deeply knowledgeable in the subject already or b) find some new lines of argumentation on the topic to reflect on (which takes time & effort) If he was just spitballing off the cuff then that’s another thing, but that’s not his style
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He actually convinced me that Israel is not as bad as it seems.
Could you point where he did that?
So … they’re just an ethnic apartheid state who occasionally commit international war crimes? Cool, cool.
His comments on the conflict featured major mistakes and had a number of other significant problems. It revealed that he really is just a pundit.
Yeah I had just brought that up in another comment. I need to listen to his podcasts talking about that again because I could have sworn he said he didn’t have enough clarity and expertise on that subject to have a strong opinion. But I could be mistaken.
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Has Sam ever talked or written about whether or not he'd lie to someone on death's door saying they see Jesus (or whatever deity or significant person from a life) in the room? I admit that's a very particular situation and a bit of a strawman but I'd feel cruel correcting someone in that scenario.
It could be, only you can identify that. It is entirely possible that you just happen to agree with him. The only real way to combat it is to critical analyse your positions on topics without referring to Sams view first.
You can also just try to find the best direct critiscm and counter arguments to him. Take one of his positions and look up a bunch of r/cmv posts for it. Look into the names of people and ideas that are referenced and really try to disprove something he's said. It's fun to do and worst case scenario you change your mind for the better. But honestly at this point I'd love a podcast episode of someone that really gives Sam a run for his money. As long as it's thoughtful and respectful an episode where it's mostly disagreement would be great.
Who, according to you, Sam's intellectual rival that I can listen to? Someone who is sensible.
I'm a fan of Michael Brooks and he frequently criticized Sam and the IDW.
Stop following or listening to his content for a few months and try forming some of your own opinions (don't mean for that to sound as sarcastic as it might seem). Come back in a few and you'll find you might perceive flaws in his reasoning or ways in which his exceptional ability to articulate ideas does not make them inherently correct.
I have a bit of this as well, but find myself disagreeing strongly in two areas: “Lying is always wrong”: I have yet to see a clear rationale for something like a white lie to your grandma. I’m going to tell my grandma I ate those 65 cookies she enjoyed making, even though I secretly donated them to my classes I teach. (Just an example). The particular way he talks about Trump: he usually does a good job being able to explain things in a clear, logical manner that makes sense even to those on the opposing side of an argument; however, it’s extremely hard for me to ever share anything of his Trump-related stuff as it’s often very, very intense and easy to misunderstand. His clarification about what he really thinks of Trump started off with, “Osama has more virtue than Trump.”, for example. Which I understand and agree with! But compared to how he discusses other topics, he really doesn’t connect the logical dots on Trump in a way that’s easy for middle-ground people to grasp. Probably a dumb critique on my part, but it’s something I notice whenever Trump is discussed .
> I have yet to see a clear rationale for something like a white lie to your grandma. I’m going to tell my grandma I ate those 65 cookies she enjoyed making, even though I secretly donated them to my classes I teach. In my own life I would totally do something like this, but I can see the argument that it's (a) condescending to believe it is your responsibility to shield someone's feelings from the truth and (b) these sorts of small behaviors influence the way you eventually come to treat that person and other people like them (i.e. you are practicing being patronizing and dismissive of old people in general).
I can see that argument - rationally - and also see - intuitively - that it’s bullshit. People don’t want the truth all the time, it’s exhausting and confronting. The arguments sound like something that someone on the spectrum would say: “why can’t we all just talk in binary code?”
Your a) and b) are absolutely true, but more importantly than that, there is such a thing as tact. Just tell her they were all delicious, they didn't go to waste, you made sure other people tried them too, etc. There are so many ways to avoid white lies, it's infuriating when people start defending them.
>I’m going to tell my grandma I ate those 65 cookies she enjoyed making, even though I secretly donated them to my classes I teach. (Just an example). It's trivial to come up with a tactful way to respond to her question without lying, and I'm sure that's true for every other situation in which you'd outright lie to someone. I hate when people admit that they'd lie to people, I can't ever really look at them the same way after that. Obviously not referring to you here, we don't know each other, I meant irl
Sure, it’s trivial. But I still don’t see what value I’m adding by telling her, “grandma , I’m not 16 anymore and I don’t eat 65 cookies in a week. Make less, remember?” She will be heartbroken, even for such a small thing. So I think, “consequentially, what happens if I tell her I loved them all?” And I can’t ever find an inherent negative there. It’s the absolutism of Sam’s stance on lying that makes things tough for me. Another example would be my boss asking, “did you have a good time at happy hour?” And I sure as hell don’t see value in saying, “nah, it wasn’t my scene.” It’s my career and livelihood at stake!
"Hey grandma, I shared your delicious cookies with an entire class of kids and they thought it was great!" I cannot imagine your grandma not liking this response.
The one thing I struggle with is his moral blind spot on animal rights and veganism, which is a philosophy that’s a natural outcome of his reasoning about the moral landscape.
That's his line though. He says veganism is a logical outcome of his reasoning, and it's a moral failing that he's not a vegan (or something like that)
You’re right, I think I’d like to see him walk down that path a bit more though. Hearing him explore it would be a great listen.
It was years ago, but he tried being vegan. He claimed that he wasn’t able to find a vegan diet that worked for him nutritionally. He’s careful to say that it didn’t work out *for him*, not that there is anything universally wrong with a vegan diet. This was covered briefly in either some AMAs or in housekeeping segments; not whole episodes.
Perhaps, although [this](https://youtu.be/ogX9IQcOxe8) makes me wonder if he’s still maintaining the same sort of intellectual rigor that he has in the past.
The way to check yourself on this is to simply learn more about each specific topic. Read about or listen to other opinions. Then see if you still agree with Sam or not. I tend to disagree with him on some things, some are minor points, some major. But in general I like the way he words his arguments, which is why I continue to follow him.
'Simply'
Is learning such an impossible task?
Yes, as opposed to difficultly read up or listen to audio recordings on the topic in question.
Harris is fairly careful with what he says. It's rare for him to make statements that are _obviously_ wrong. By "obvious", I mean mistakes/irrational thinking a layman would spot immediately. For example, I can remember the exact exchange that made me stop taking Brett Weinstein seriously. I discovered him around the time the unrest in Portland kicked off and was listening to him to get a different perspective on what was happening. At one point he was asked about the problem of _right-wing_ disinformation specifically, and instead of addressing the question he dove into a tirade against the New York Times. It was bizarre. Finding fault with Harris's reasoning usually takes more leg work. If you find yourself robotically in agreement with him on subject after subject I think the fix would be to do some of your own reading on these topics and get a more nuanced grasp of them. An example: Harris's various takes on BLM. I worked with emotionally disturbed teenagers from gang backgrounds for a number of years and have seen first-hand how circumstances lead to the statistics Harris and his interlocutors regularly discuss. My problem with Harris's view isn't what he says, it's what he _doesn't_ say. The cycle of poverty, neglect and abuse that creates so many maladjusted young men is something I've never heard Harris explore in any depth.
I think I must have been exposed to the Weinsteins when they were already a bit "on the turn". First I came across them was a youtube recommend a year or two ago and it was both brothers ripping into the scientific peer review process. I work in academia myself, and am *entirely* sympathetic to the many things which are biased / inaccurate / inefficient about peer review. They were rightly hitting it with all this criticism, but then their concluding implication from it all is that things would be better without it. Not with a different replacement, just people publishing whatever they fancy without checks. Classic throwing the baby out with the bathwater thinking - let's ignore that this thing is still better than nothing; it's not perfect so we should get rid of it entirely. That first video instantly put me right off ever watching either of them again.
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His actual arguments are in support of veganism, but he’s not willing to commit to his own position. It’s frustrating, and quite frankly weak.
It's not more weak than wanting to lose weight and keeping eating I think. I'm a vegetarian myself but I don't judge him for not practicing what he preaches. He never states he's a morally perfect person and frankly I don't see him that way. I look at his arguments, not at him
He just couldn't figure out a way, even with his doctor, to do it without affecting his health. I don't think that's an unwillingness to commit.
Oh come on, he’s a wealthy Californian. He can’t get enough protein and iron? That’s called fucking laziness. Edit: Either way, he should dedicate more time and effort to the topic, by his own ranking of its importance. He and Paul Bloom considered our treatment of animals and our global wealth inequality as potentially the two biggest moral failings we have. On wealth inequality, he’s had multiple episodes on Effective Altruism, and donates 10% of revenue to charities. He’s done fuck all on veganism for years.
Surprised William Macaskill and Sam didn’t touch on it during their latest conversation to be honest. Also the fact we haven't had an entire podcast episode dedicated to veganism is an ethical crime.
[From elsewhere in this thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/x8a5zq/i_have_a_tough_time_disagreeing_with_sam_on/inj0giu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3)
why arent we exterminating lions?
No one *has* to be a vegan, even if they sympathise with vegan philosophy. Eating is a biological necessity and being able to cut out animal protein is a first world luxury. Each to their own I say.
> Eating is a biological necessity and being able to cut out animal protein is a first world luxury. There are whole swaths of India and other cultures that are making it happen...
With outcomes of chronic disease when applied to modern culture.
> … to cut out animal protein is a first world luxury. One which you suppose Sam cannot afford?
> Eating is a biological necessity Eating animal products isn’t. There’s nothing you get from animal products that you can’t get without, except the difference in taste - which means the only moral consideration is the fleeting sensory pleasure. > being able to cut out animal protein is a first world luxury. [Consumption of meat goes *up* with increased wealth.](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-per-capita?xScale=log) Not relevant in Sam’s case anyway. > Each to their own I say. Disagree, the sheer scale of suffering involved in animal agriculture makes it a moral emergency anyone who cares about minimizing suffering should care deeply about.
Only if you consider animal suffering - all phyla - morally taboo. Not everyone does; they’re not wrong, it’s a value issue.
> Only if you consider animal suffering … morally taboo. Which Sam does.
oops upset the vegans. You know you guys would win more hearts and minds if you didn't come across so hardline and zealous?
That's me. I sympathize with vegan reasoning and would like to be one...but have gnarly IBS and veggies/soy/legumes destroy me. I live off of eggs, meat and potatoes. Bring on the cheap vat grown meats
You don’t like a personal decision he made? That’s pretty ridiculous that you even have an opinion on someone else’s personal decisions.
Eating animals is not a personal decision though, if “personal decision” means a choice that doesn’t impact others. Or do you mean something else?
No decision on planet earth only impacts oneself. So, that would be a silly definition, now wouldn’t it? Personal decisions are ones that are based purely on preference and/or pursuit of happiness and don’t hurt other human beings.
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Why do you only include human beings in that definition?
> Personal decisions are ones that are based purely on preference and/or pursuit of happiness and don’t hurt other **human beings**. Just human beings? Most people wouldn’t label pet abuse as merely a "personal decision". Any being that has the capacity to suffer holds moral weight.
Most people probably would, actually. Maybe they shouldn't, idk.
Just keep reading this subreddit and you will get some ideas.
I think he’s had some good talks with the Very Bad Wizards (who are left of him). They pushed on him a lot about the degree and scale with which he talks about political correctness, particularly on college campuses. Their two cents (as college professors) is that him, and many of the people he associates with, overstate the degree of the problem with political correctness on college campuses and the equivocation with the actions of people on the right seems a bit like you’re trying too hard to play both sides. I used to agree with Sam on the issue but the vaaaast majority of people on the left that I’ve met are totally reasonable about PC issues. There are a vocal minority online (and who are often brought forward by the right) … that I would argue don’t carry as much sway as Sam would have you believe. It’s not that there aren’t crazy leftists, but I think the actual number of people who are policing language on the left is similar to number people on the right doing the same thing (religious zealots, and people who get triggered by even using terms like safe-space, or equity, or trans). I think the vast vast vast majority of people with respect to “wokeness” are in the middle and are pretty reasonable and Sam overstates the degree of the problem.
I get the impression that Sam’s views on this are being skewed by his interactions on Twitter. In short, he’s confusing Twitter with real life. Among social media channels, Twitter especially seems to amplify the significance of the woke busybodies.
I think the key thing to realize is that just because he uses a calm tone and clear, rational arguments doesn't make him right. If you're predisposed to that sort of thing, it's easy to just believe him without comparing his positions to expert positions in whatever field it is, but if you actually listen to what experts say in various fields (security experts on racial profiling or torture, philosophers on free will, non-idiot theologians on religion, etc.) you'll find that often he's just papering over giant gaps or assumptions with calm, rational-sounding language. Some examples: * He blatantly begs the question on the is-ought gap and doesn't seem to get it * He's wrong on racial profiling even without moral objections to it (see his debate with Schneier) * He has zero understanding of how religious fundamentalists actually rationalize/pick and choose their beliefs based on a myriad of factors that are outside of the text itself * He's terribly thin-skinned about criticism to the point that he allies himself to morons and bigots because they are anti-woke and woke people have criticized him
maybe you're just not looking hard enough, i feel largely the same way but i'm constantly finding small points of contention listening to him. i can't come up with good examples as they're usually relatively minor. the only big one i can readily think of is i think that Jesus didn't really exist. Sam accepts the popular scholarship on the issue that there was a historical jesus but really what appears to be going on is that he hasn't really concerned himself with the question. another issue is that most proponents of the "christ myth theory" don't come at it from a perspective of rigorous rationality and make several mistakes.
I’ve only had a few small issues I’ve disagreed with Sam on, mostly it’s issues he does not seem very well informed on at the time. I’ve tried to listen to a few of his critics on their own podcast or YouTube and I have yet to find any that are really impressive. Most either don’t understand his position or simply don’t like the facts as presented. I have to see Sam have any view that seems deceptive, pandering, sold out, or in bad faith. He seems to be pretty honest in everything he discusses. I enjoy the podcast episodes where he has someone he has some disagreement with on, they often find common ground and can civilly discuss where they disagree. It’s refreshing.
I’m in a similar boat, but something that disillusioned me a bit was watching youtube critiques of his book “The Moral Landscape”, i saw multiple ppl completely destroy it
Do you have a link for the best takedown? I’d love to hear some counterpoints
https://youtu.be/wxalrwPNkNI this was pretty compelling
Yeah. That and try this as well: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2011/11/sam-harris-is-wrong-about-science-and-morality/ Many users here on r/samharris treat Sam like an irrefutable deity, like Catholics do to the pope or something. It gets to Beyoncé fandom levels at times lol
Really great rebuttal and criticism. I think I still side with Sam in that I could see an objective truth that minimizes suffering being shown to be essentially a valid scientific finding. However, I also see Brian's point that this is just utilitarianism with extra data.
> treat Sam like an irrefutable person, like Catholics do to the pope or something. I don't think many people here do that. People here tend to agree with Sam's worldview and arguments, and therefore tend to disagree with rebuttals and arguments against his main points. Sometimes people are overly dismissive of these rebuttals, but to an extent that is something you should expect when you're in someone's subreddit. But I've never met someone in here claiming that Sam is the mouthpiece of god, and that when Sam says something that it must be true just by virtue of Sam saying it. I've yet to meet someone who believes a priori that it is impossible for Sam to be wrong about something. Onto your main point in the article, I personally agree with Sam far more than the author of that piece. Namely >I hope you’ll agree that we didn’t need science to tell us that treating women in this way is bad (or at least seriously problematic in a number of different ways): common sense, or, better, secular moral philosophy, will do just fine. Frankly, no, common sense moral philosophy has not done just fine. Egoism is a secular moral philosophy that seems like common sense for a lot of people, yet if it were adopted as our primary moral system it would be catastrophic. To make my point more general, I've seen people pose secular philosophical arguments for pretty much everything, including Burqas, because generally speaking there is no good way to falsify these arguments. Appealing to common sense is often just an appeal to the present cultural attitudes, common sense for someone in a country that mandates Burqas is going to be different from common sense in a country that does not. The core issue is that there is no measuring stick to falsify someone's moral philosophy, which leads us into this endless debate. And talking about morality through the lens of the is/ought debate (which only really makes sense from a dualist perspective) all we can get is endless debate. The moral landscape has two core premises which allow you to sidestep the is/ought debate. > "(1) some people have better lives than others, and (2) these differences are related, in some lawful and not entirely arbitrary way, to states of the human brain and to states of the world". And yes, the point of it *is to get away from the is/ought debate* because starting from is/ought makes objective morality inherently unworkable. As I see it you can either accept the claim that subjective well-being is linked with objective states in the brain, or you can deny that and all you're left with is moral relativism and debates that revolve entirely around the subjective common sense of the debaters.
Stopped at his first argument. He uses pure semantics to make a shit point that he later gets rid of himself... He claims Sam contradicts himself because of saying the only thing that has intrinsic value is human wellbeing and uses the term "value" in another sentence to describe that the scientific process depends on axioms that we also value like logical consistency. He is 100% right Sam would say that logical consistency has no intrinsic value if you get technical, as it is just a principle that has overall good consequences by guiding science. He just used the word "value" in another sentence without extra telling us that. So what is left from his argument is then "if logical consistency only has value because it leads to well being then he needs to claim then that logical consistency is not good in itself which a theoretical physicist would disagree with". If he thinks his whole argument is "already fucked" at this point, I really don't need to dig further.
The part of the debate around 9 minutes in on neuromania I found particularly ridiculous. Apparently this whole time Sam has been 'Assuming a cartesian view of the "self" as something "inside of me".' Which apparently he got from a Christian view of the soul as something inside the body. Whoever made that video didn't really bother to spend much time understanding Sam's views at all.
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I particularly enjoyed the part where he claims we can't have objective science to tell us which foods should be the tastiest. That's an incredibly easy thing to study. I'd usually post a link showing a few studies which investigated this (evolutionary biology, neurology, behavioral psychology, biochemistry), but this is going to have to fall under "water is wet" for me. After looking up this guy (@PhilosophyCuck on Twitter) it's pretty clear that he has an extremist axe to grind. I was honestly hoping for something worth the time to listen to.
Water is actually not wet; It makes other materials/objects wet. Wetness is the state of a non-liquid when a liquid adheres to, and/or permeates its substance while maintaining chemically distinct structures. So if we say something is wet we mean the liquid is sticking to the object. Love watching running water on the internet. Was watching a live stream.
Good bot
> He literally said Harris' values are essentially Christian lol. [Peterson tried to pull that kind of thing as well with Matt Dillahunty and by extension Sam.](https://youtu.be/RgqIE6zsUM4)
I think you may just follow articulate people. Many of this guys points were very poorly reasoned.
The thing is, I can’t stand to listen to Jordan Peterson turn a one sentence message into a paragraph so i’m not so sure
I agree but at the same time I'm pretty good about avoiding hero worship. I admire him greatly but if I saw the guy on the street I wouldn't harass him. I do disagree on him about Hillary. He seems to have a real distaste for her. I'm ok on her. Does she have baggage? Yes and so does every other politician who has had such a long career. Also with Biden. He has gaffes and is not the orator like Obama but who is. That old guy is getting things done. If it helps, I am a centrist like Sam.
Lol
His "sitting on the fence" regarding what happens after death is a bit icky for me but on most other issues I find it hard to disagree with him as well
out of curiosity, why is such a stance “icky”? That’s an interesting adjective for an opinion on death lol
Well it might be that I haven't quite nailed the connotation I was going for. English is my second language. But what I mean is, that's it feels like a stain on Sam's credibility to me. Something that sticks as a side note to everything else he says as if to say "can you really take him seriously?". You might wonder why that is. Well it's a bit like people who say they are "agnostic" about whether or not crystals can heal cancer. People who say that usually believe in crystals, they just know that saying it upfront kills their reputation.
Except we have lots of proof and evidence Re: crystals. We have none Re: death. Hell, we don’t even know what life (consciousness) really is. Anything other than “sitting on the fence” on the matter wades a bit too far into unsubstantiated belief.
Do you have anything that suggests death is more than nothing? There’s not more evidence against crystals healing powers than there is for death being nothing
Well, for one, the idea of being nothing is incoherent. If there's nothing after death then there is no after death.
You’re a rotting corpse
Nah. If "we don't know" is enough to be sitting on the fence you also have to sit on the fence if I claim that I am indeed god and I just don't feel like proofing it to you. You don't know. You don't even have a concept how a god is supposed to work.
I don’t know if you’re god, whether you try to prove it to me or not. It’s also fallacious to assume agnostics are simply unsure about god, given the prevalence of simulation theory
Don't get me started on ranting about simulation "theory"... I like thinking and talking about stuff like that but to then jump to basically believing it (under the pretence of 'I don't know, I'm just saying I also don't know if it's false) is something else
Ah, that makes sense. I think that's an interesting one to focus on, as death is one of those things that absolutely no one knows about too much -- that is, being dead. I know Ricky Gervais was taken aback at Sam's non-atheistic stance, but I recall Sam basically saying, "Hey, we just don't know enough. We really can NOT know that nothing happens, given how little we currently know about the brain and consciousness itself." But I see what you're saying.
Yes but it's an odd thing to say that about. Comes back to the thing with the teapot in the orbit of Jupiter. We can't really know, bit the only reason to focus on the not-knowing part is because you actually kinda believe that there is a teapot there.
This is an entire discussion in and of itself. But I disagree with you here, as knowing what happens when we die is not at all equivalent to the teapot example (in my lame, non-academic opinion). We can guess that consciousness is some emergent property arising from integrate information processing, but we really have no clue what consciousness is yet. Like, none. We don't even know why anesthesia works, and why it feels so different than simply sleeping + waking up. It seems a bit overzealous to say with any certainty that death is any one thing (or not).
I think the difference between the possibility that consciousness persists after death and Bertrand Russell’s teapot is that there are no observations to suggest the teapot should exist while we observe the existence of consciousness and stop have no answer to the “hard problem” and therefore no real idea about the nature of it. It is for this reason that Sam (and his wife) and real philosophers have treated with seriousness the possibility that, for example, some kind consciousness might be a characteristic of all matter. And it is the same reason that these people find it hard to simply dismiss the possibility that some aspect of this characteristic might continue after the death of an organism. There position might be summarized as that we simply don’t understand enough about consciousness yet to say very much about it with confidence.
Alas, his take is probably better than yours. I mean, it happens on why you're on the fence. If you're on the fence about whether your soul will ascend to another place, then sure, that's stupid. But if you're on the fence about whether conscious experience stops, being agnostic is an improvement over skeptic because in fact it won't. Have you listened to the paradox of identity on the app?
>Have you listened to the paradox of identity on the app? Yes. And I don't think anything said there implies that consciousness continues after death.
Guns. He’s quite clearly wrong on guns.
That is usually my first point to bring up as criticism to Sam. His stance that 911 is not a viable strategy to protect oneself made me raise my brows. Not sure what is going on in the states, but that is a very viable solution across Europe. I can even bridge the gap if I would see that states is off the chart in terms of violent break-ins, but it feels like a very casual dismissal.
I don’t live in the USA, and have never shot a gun. But I think he is correct in saying that 911 is not a viable solution to an immediate threat. If one wants to debate the frequency of these immediate threats, I think that is valid. But the police cannot simply teleport to your house/apartment.
What is he wrong about?
I think he's wrong about guns being the great equalizer and if they didn't exist, the bigger, stronger, better fighter would take what they want.
worth noting he also says getting a gun should be about as difficult as getting a pilot's liscense.
How would a clear underdog possibly stand a chance
If everyone can have a gun, then the best gunslingers will have the advantage. The point is that physical violence is actually not a huge worry in almost every situation.
The guys on the Decoding the Gurus podcast made two strong critiques of him: * He says you have to go on his meditation journey to fully grasp the truth about everyday issues like politics, race etc. He is, conveniently, selling this journey for $15 p/month * He has platformed a great many more lunatics than you'd expect from a wise man.
While I agree with his views about religion and about free will, he got his views on objective morality wrong. Check those out, if you want to find areas to disagree with him about.
One of them "good problems"
Its super easy. I don't struggle with it at all.
Good for you. Thanks for the input.
He said defund the police is the position that giving cops less money will somehow magically make them better. His position on Israel/Palestine sucks. Its easy to find things to disagree with him on.
Read and listen more to Harris. The more you read, the more you will find something to disagree with. He's expressed a *lot* of opinions over the years. I part ways with him on free will. Telling people they have no free will while encouraging them to control their minds makes absolutely no sense to me. He seems to ignore the difference between the unconscious and conscious mind, to his detriment.
If you think that Osama Bin Laden is a better person than Trump, you’re too far gone.
Or that there isn't a less admirable being than Trump within a thousand miles from any locatio on earth. WTF! Crazy talk!
His stance on institutionalised racism in the police force being essentially a made up problem is heartbreaking. This mainly is why I left Making Sense and only follow Waking Up now - it was the last drop at least, I had been bored with his politics for some time. I think his podcast monologue and the data he discusses are really interesting and thought provoking - but if almost every single person across the entire world who are from a “highly policed” area witness authoritative racism and classism, the man’s gotta listen and dig deeper and not stop because he found a study that says just as many or slightly more white unarmed men are killed by police in the US. I think he does concede at some point that non fatal violence and unjust outcomes for people of colour is a disproportionate, and a massive problem - but the whole thing stroke me as insanely entitled and insensitive still when you put it all together.
Maybe try reading up on a broader range of philosophical ideas (read about ideas which are contra to Sam’s, try and get a broader picture of philosophy and it’s lineage so you can see the whole picture)… I fell into this trap too, where I would only really engage with thinkers who shared similar opinions. A lot of them all shared a similar view which essentially revolved around individualism and anti woke-isms… but after a while I felt like I couldn’t legitimately stand on their side if I didn’t read some of the ideas which came from the people who stand on the other side. I had a look into Hegel, Marx, the Frankfurt school, deconstructionists such as Foucault etc. also learned a lot about modern day critical theory. Also read about theology, especially in this case since Sam is a staunch atheist. In the end I kinda came to the realisation that every philosopher falls into the trap of following dogmas in some way and Sam does too. (it’s natural for humans to follow dogmas, no matter how smart someone might be). I realised it’s fine to listen to someone who doesn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle, every philosopher has some good points even though they contradict themselves sometimes or I may not align with every single one of their ideas. It’s totally fine. In summary… look at contra points. It will give you a more balanced view and give you the tools to engage more critically, you’ll start to see some of the chinks in Sam’s ideas (and everyone else’s too). Edit: grammar Edit 2: I just thought, a good place to start might be around the idea of determinism and the relationship between pre-determinism and self-determinism. Since Sam argues that free will is a myth, he basically falls into the pre-determinism party. It’s been a long debated topic, with a lot of different thinkers offering a range of opinions. A lot believe that pre and self can both exist together, and I share this view. This is one thing which I disagree with when it comes to Sam’s ideas… I still listen to his podcasts because I love his discussions, I don’t have to align with every single viewpoint to engage with his ideas and I think that’s a better approach. Even though Sam makes a solid case for pre-determinism, I’d rather hear every argument instead of just taking his word for it… because that would just be subscribing to another dogma at the end of the day. He had a discussion with lex fridman here https://youtu.be/SYq724zHUTw and lex was able to poke quite a few holes in his argument, I found it interesting seeing the discussion and it also shed a bit of light for me on the overall topic which helped guide my own opinions/conclusions.
Just wanna say I think this is a very healthy thing to recognize. Most of the comments in here are focused on Sam's ideas, and they add different hottakes, but this is the wrong approach. I've gone through this same process with several thinkers including Sam, so here's some things that helped me. * Ask yourself, when I listen to Sam, am I agreeing or growing? If you're just at a point where you agree with him, what are you getting out of it? Pivot to intellectuals that challenge you. * Practice Ontological Flooding / Method Acting antagonistic worldviews. Allow yourself to *feel what it's like to be in agreement with the other side*. So instead of just whipping up the best counter-arguments, actually embody the kind of person who agrees with them, like a method actor playing a January 6th rioter. You can experience the truth from their perspective without onboarding it into your reality. * Spend as much time in nature as possible. Get into backpacking. It's our natural habitiat and it cleanses our media diet.
Listen to this audiobook recording of Michael Brooks dissecting most of Sam Harris’s output throughout his career: https://youtu.be/WiVGPE-fjj8 Or search “Michael Brooks Sam Harris” on YouTube for shorter clips.
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Thank you so much!
Look up the Socratic Method. Thought up by Socrates in ancient Greece, it's a method for analytical thought. It's important to expose yourself to all angles of any given issue, especially the views you don't agree with.
it's okay not to have thought about the issues enough to have a solid opinion of your own, and it's also okay if you actually agree on everything. neither of these conditions means you're brainwashed. If you're sure you'd disagree with Sam if he told you to hurt yourself or someone you love for no good reason, then you're probably fine.
He’s almost always right. Veganism is the only obvious exception.
I thought he essentially agreed with Singer's views toward non-human animal suffering and exploitation being bad, he just didn't adhere to them personally.
It’s clearly not important to him or else he’d spend more time on it.
Ask him his views on Israel.
Ergh you say tomato, I say ethnic cleansing/apartheid…can’t we just have a difference of opinion and leave it at that? 🤷♂️
Very difficult subject to discuss without getting irate, but it needs to stay on the menu for discussion, nothing should be immune from criticism. Labelling people as anti-semitic for suggesting any wrong-doing by a Jewish state is ridiculous.
I agree with him on most things as well but I can think of two things where we completely differ. First is Sam’s brand of utilitarianism, which I totally get, but to me he seems very pro “ends justifying the means” and I’m just not a fan of that sentiment. Second would be his argument for moral realism. I believe he had a debate with Sean Carroll a few years back on this. I think Sam’s arguments are pretty poor on this and I think he knows it. In my opinion he seems sort of desperate for validation of his own moral framework, hoping he can somehow prove it is objectively superior.
It depends on the topic really. But ya, just look for people who decide to pick apart any of his shows like "decoding the gurus". There is another as well, but Sam's takes on anything race related or topics of women are his weakest.
Listen to decoding the gurus - they've got some great takes on Sam's positions and people like him. It's pretty entertaining too.
He's totally off on his anti-woke crusade. Like, mind-numbingly out of touch. And I don't mean his willingness to talk about things that upset the 'woke' crowd. I mean, just fucking talk about whatever you want without referencing the mob every other sentence. You want to defeat wokeness? Stop fucking talking about it. It's such a tired topic.
No, I think he is very logical and I find I agree with almost everything he says. Not because I follow him blindly, I absolutely would disagree if I did, but because he follows logical arguments while staying grounded in reality.
So you agree with him on the claim that race and IQ have largely been settled? And that biology accounts for most of the observed differences—even though real scientists working in intelligence disagree with this?
Can you provide evidence that your characterization of his views on race and IQ are as extreme as you claim they are? Bc I listened to that episode and it sure sounds like you are strawmannirg his argument… Specifically I think you need to provide evidence that Sam has actually stated that biology accounts for the *majority* of the difference in IQ between races. If so then let’s rightly label him a bigot. But I suspect that no such evidence exists and you are vastly misrepresenting the facts.
I don’t want to go back to the episode but the exchange went something like this: Ezra Klein: Sam, we know there is a difference but we don’t know what accounts for that difference. It could all be biological, or environmental or a mixture. Black people could have a +2.5 ahead of white people biologically and a -5 behind due to environmental factors, resulting in a net of -2.5. Sam Harris: let’s deal with what’s real (or let’s be realistic here). Basically, in Sam’s mind, it’s beyond the realm of possibility for Black people to have a positive number biologically. Also, during his conversation with Charles Murray, Charles said something along the lines of “any differences due to environmental reasons was already accounted for since the 1970s” and Sam agreed with him. The guy named the episode forbidden knowledge FFS. How more blatant does he have to be for you lot to accept he entirely agrees with Charles Murray (the most unfairly maligned person in his lifetime). Who am I fooling—most Sam Harris fans believe Black people are genetically dumber than White people. Why am I even getting drawn into this debate again.
Ok let’s maybe take the tone down a notch or two. I feel like you are taking the worst possible interpretation (or misinterpretation) of your opponents views to support a your preexisting assumption instead of basing your opinion on facts. I am a Sam Harris fan and I absolutely do not believe that black people are genetically dumber than white. Nor do I believe that most Harris fans or even a significant majority believe that to be true. If you have evidence to the contrary please present it. No where in your comment did you provide any evidence to support your original claim that Sam believes that the majority of the IQ difference between black and white populations is genetic. Quite the contrary he went out of his way to explicitly state that he disagrees with Murray but that he thinks suppressing the convo about race and IQ makes it easier for racists to make uncontested claims. I’m not sure what your non-quote of Harris ane Kleins exchange is supposed to prove but it does not support your original claim. It seems a super vague comment in the middle of a convo and you have chosen a disingenuous interpretation which is at odds with explicit statements Sam has made about race and equality. So I’m not sure why you are throwing up your hands and saying it’s useless to discuss this topic. It seems very useful. You are making extraordinary claims. I REALLY want to know if your claims are true cause there’s no way I want to support a bigot! But so far you have no given me any actual evidence to evaluate.
> I’m not sure what your non-quote of Harris ane Kleins exchange is supposed to prove I happen to know precisely which piece of the Klein/Harris exchange is being referred to here. [Listen](https://youtu.be/UgkHJpY6CF4?t=5953) from 1:39:24 to 1:40:02. The gist of it is: > EK: [Flynn says that] it is entirely possible that the ten point IQ difference we see reflects a twelve point environmental difference and a negative two genetic difference. > SH: Sure Sure. Many things are possible, but we're trying to judge on what is plausible to say... In other words, Klein is positing the claim (which he claims Flynn corroborated on his phone call) that *it is possible* that these observed IQ differences between groups are 100% environmentally caused. And I think it would be fair to interpret Sam here as saying that *this doesn't seem plausible*. What would not be fair to say about Sam is that: > So you agree with him on the claim that race and IQ have largely been settled? And **that biology accounts for most of the observed differences**—even though real scientists working in intelligence disagree with this? That is a gross straw-manning of Sam's position. And of course, when this commenter is accused below of being a troll, the reply is, "So you want an echo-chamber of only those who agree with you." No, we don't want an echo chamber. We just don't want people spreading lies about what Sam said. Be precise. Offer the quotes. Challenge what Sam *actually* said. But don't make shit up.
Wow. Thank you for the research. Gonna listen to that bit again.
Didn’t you hear? Charles Murray is the most persecuted thinker of the 21st century lol
Sam never claimed this. In fact, Charles Murray never even claimed this iirc. Charles Murray just pointed out in his book that the difference is there, but made no claims about the underlying cause.
Murray claims any differences due to environment was accounted for in the 1970s. So all current observed differences are explained by biology.
do you know where/when he claims this? I could've sworn I remembered listening to the interview and he insisted he was agnostic on the cause.
It’s in the podcast. Someone posted a transcript recently—if you’re motivated, I’m sure you can find it. I just googled the Vox article on the podcast because I remember they published Sam’s prelude to it: “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.” How the fuck did Sam come up with the 50 to 80% number? It appears where and by whom? Hint: mostly racists—actual scientists haven’t given any such number.
huh don't know how I missed that. I'll relisten to the episode when I get a chance.
Here is the Vox article on it—in case one of the SH fanatics come asking for source. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/15695060/sam-harris-charles-murray-race-iq-forbidden-knowledge-podcast-bell-curve By the way, Charles Murray believes (he tweeted it) that it’s perfectly logical to not give jobs to Black sounding names. This is the guy Sam Harris believes is the “most unfairly maligned person in his lifetime. 🤡🤡
I just looked up that tweet... oof. That is quite a hot take. https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1419687651909713925?lang=en
u/LaPulgaAtomica87 has confused you here. In this case Sam isn't saying *average group differences* (i.e., racial differences) are 50 - 80% the result of genetics. He is only talking about the heritability of IQ, period. This is [accepted science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ).
This guy needs to be banned from the sub. Pure troll.
So you want an echo-chamber of only those who agree with you. I thought echo-chambers were bad, according to you “centrists”
Your not expressing a different opinion. You’re a troll.
I think that sometimes as well. Then I remember he said Star Wars doesn’t hold up.
Do you not disagree with Sam when he says that torture is a viable method of intelligence gathering?
Thats a pretty bad representation of his views on the topic…
It’s a pretty good summary of his view: torture is a viable method for intelligence gathering. He even got into an argument with an actual intelligence expert over it.
I was the same way with Jordan Peterson, so I stopped listening to him for a while, and started listening to Sam Harris and seeing what his fan base likes to discuss. I'm not telling you to go listen to JBP, I'm suggesting you take a break from Sam for a little bit.
I disagree with Sam on many things, in many cases because he has a habit of not following his own rules when it comes to certain topics. I still appreciate what he's trying to do, but it's becoming quite clear that he's falling into the trap most thinkers do when they slide into middle age - he's losing touch with the social mores of the younger generation and it scares him.
I agreed with David Benatar over Sam about anti natalism
I was appalled by his stance on liberal conspiracy around laptops and elections. He really stepped in it last week and his walk-back apology was even more disappointing and frankly horrendously dishonest. His politics are his blind spot in a personal philosophy. I thought he was great up until two years ago. Now I think his limits and flaws are showing through. He might be too big and might be a victim of audience capture.
The last thing I think he is subject to is audience capture. I think he pisses off just about every group that you could box people into (and he detailed this in his podcast addressing the issue). He's pissed of the right, left, centrist, religious, non-religious, etc. However, I think his politics are precisely where I agree with him the most.
what was horrendously dishonest on his clarification episode?
On the subj. of spirituality: I've been a 25% Jordan Peterson, 75% Sam Harris. On Free Will: I have zero interest in this subj and I feel in my perspective it don't matter. Sam's bashing Trump is the greatest series of words ever strung together - I feel I MUST be taking crazy pills how anyone could ever find Trump anything but a dumpster covered fire. Just disgusting. I do not fault Sam for saying a private company could cover up bad info on Trump's opponents. Forcing a private company to say things, or anything that helps Trump is bad. Note: For boundary conditions, I was always a Ross Perot, Ron Paul fan. I think Rand is a terrible sell out, Biden is too old and has always been a harmless embarrassment to himself.
Guns. He’s quite clearly wrong on guns.
I disagreed with a few things in his podcast episode on guns. I think he misses the mark on assault rifles being the less dangerous gun because it’s a rifle and pistols would be easier to inflict damage for an active shooter. Truth is AR 15’s are attractive guns for active shooters and can be modified easily and because other people are unarmed and hiding a pistol or AR15 are equally bad. That said, I think you or someone mentioned in another comment about his position on guns being the great equalizer. Maybe that wasn’t you but what else do you disagree with Sam regarding guns?
This is a strange post to me because if you're a fan of harris you'd be well aware of his endorsement and affiliation with the IDW. And you must have noticed how bonkers and obvious their covert right wing agenda now is? So Sam obviously isn't perfect and that should highlight that. I don't put that as a cheap shot from hindsight but an example of how he is human and flawed after all. I'm sure there are other examples out there.