Sam Harris' new book

[LimpyLoo]

"Brown people" lol

 

Well, you've tipped your hand, JE. No palate for subtlety, I guess. You sound like someone whose opinion has been handed them by a Slate article.

 

How about instead of just calling him a liar, you actually cite an example.

[awepittance]

you must be reading a much better version of Slate that only exists in a parallel dimension, that's exciting. Please show me some other links from this extremely radical left version of Slate, because well in our dimension most of the people writing for Slate are milquetoast borderline retarded Sam Harris fan types

why is 'brown people' lol again?

im not interested in reading any of his material, i think he pretends to dislike islam because hes a 'liberal' thats what i mean when i say he's a liar. So im questioning his authenticity about how he presents himself, you've chosen to take him at face value, i've chosen to think that he is a very clever neocon using liberalism to help the US kill people, mostly muslims (and to help fellow democrats and liberals feel less guilty about it in the process).

for just one example of a lie I heard him tell recently he said that the lowest estimates for mass casualties in Iraq (200,000) were almost all 'sectarian violence'. And im sorry but all you have to do is watch like 20 uncensored videos of what the US military operations actually looked like in Iraq (fortunately we dont have to know what they smelled like also) and you will figure out pretty quickly that Sam Harris is either lying through his teeth or he has intentionally shielded himself from seeing how the US military actually conducted the 'war' in Iraq. there is absolutely no way mathematically speaking IEDs and suicide bombings Iraqi Vs Iraqi would have been more than a drop in the bucket in that statistic. After Shock and Awe, the initial bombing campaign it took them over a month to clean up all the decomposing bodies littering the radius around the main bombing epicenter. Since I try not to ingest nazi-doc vibes I haven't really intentionally absorbed more of the Sociopath known as Sam Harris, however just this one example shows his neocon style tactics which are pretty commonly used tactics by other neocons. Concede a lot of known 'facts' about the horrificness of our wars, but cleverly spinning the meaning of the hard numbers. I think I can safely assume this is a running theme in his work, downplaying US military carnage and exaggerating muslim/islam created carnage. If you can somehow show me something that implies he does not follow this typical trajectory let me know, maybe he just does it more cleverly than other 'obvious' neocons to you and thats why you've been tricked by his 'charm' (as charming as a nazi doctor can be)

[YO303]

All of this because he told your sister off on the JRE podcast? you seem to be having a mental breakdown

[LimpyLoo]

lol

[awepittance]

i know you'd probably like to think that since you've had a passive aggressive hard on for me ever since you knew i was involved in BTS (id try to pull up your old posts if i gave enough of a fuck ) but no of course someone like me would hate Sam Harris for a while. just for clarification: You know my politics right? you should try having a breakdown sometime, it might make you less boring. That was directed to Deer not limpy

lol

you're slipping dude, even with my crazy style you used to at least have good shit to say

[LimpyLoo]

Oh god, JE.

 

Go back and actually listen to him on JRE...he talk about how terrible U.S. Foreign policy is.

 

Oh and P.S. He was strongly opposed to the war in Iraq. Please get your facts straight before you lecture me about authenticity and truth and all that. Jesus Christ.

[sheatheman]

watching the john and limp fight is like this:

 

[brian trageskin]

genuine nazi doctor vibes

 

lol

[auxien]

im not interested in reading any of his material, i think he pretends to dislike islam because hes a 'liberal' thats what i mean when i say he's a liar. So im questioning his authenticity about how he presents himself, you've chosen to take him at face value, i've chosen to think that he is a very clever neocon using liberalism to help the US kill people, mostly muslims (and to help fellow democrats and liberals feel less guilty about it in the process).

 

lol

 

 

You realize that this reads as "I have no actual grasp of what he thinks or says, only what he looks like when I glance sideways at him, and yet I still think it's okay to assume he's a part of conspiratorial mass murder. Further, I will repeatedly yap and bait people about this so I have something to rant about and use the word 'neocon' as many times as is possible."

 

It's really really silly, you know this, right? I don't care if you're baiting or not, it's perhaps more ridiculous if you are baiting on this and don't actually believe the spittle dripping out of your mouth.

 

[cwmbrancity]

loaded a small amount of blue cheese into the vape chamber & adjusting posture

 

hold on,,,,,,,,, & exhale slowly, mmmmmm taste the fonk

 

christ, thats better, #blog

 

what was the thread about again?

[doublename]

lol

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[awepittance]

Oh god, JE.

 

Go back and actually listen to him on JRE...he talk about how terrible U.S. Foreign policy is.

 

thats what the co-founder of PNAC does too, he concedes that many aspects of US foreign policy are terrible in order to sell more wars. Catchup dude, this is what 2015 neocons do, they appeal to liberalism, Bush era neocons had to rebrand themselves to get actually feeling/emotional people who don't like mass murder to kinda feel like murdering is ok again. Look up PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan 2006-2012 era talks and tell me that his vibe is not eerily similar to Harris

 

 

NEW : The nazi doctor vibes go off the charts in a piss poor Sam Harris 'rational skeptic' style tantrum via email to Chomsky

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/professional-atheist-sam-harris-looks-like-an-idiot-in-this-email-exchange-with-noam-chomsky/

[awepittance]

good rebuttal to the Harris 'effect' from the raw story article

 

As I read the above exchange, I had the following thoughts, listed here not in any order of importance:

1. At almost every turn, Harris fails to give a substantive response, instead relying on attacking or cajoling or feigning his feelings have been hurt by Chomsky and insisting he is only trying to do this for their common readers. Sam Harris seems so disingenuous in his effort to engage Chomsky, so why is he doing it? He's like Ken Hamm trying to get a debate with Bill Nye to promote himself.

2. Probably because he is more complex a thinker than I, but why doesn't Chomsky simply point out the old adage, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions?" Or maybe it's because he believes that in fact the road to hell is paved with bad intentions masquerading as good intentions.

 

3. Harris always refers to the actions of the US government as "we" did this or "we" did that. Because he thinks what Clinton did was not as bad as what Al Qaeda did, "we" are therefore better. I think US foreign policy in particular, and increasingly US domestic policy, is shaped by corporate interests and is carried out in their narrow interests, not in the wider interests of the American people. I would ask Harris to state whether he believes that there can be two bad guys on opposite sides of a fight or whether one of them has to be good (or at least supported because he is somehow less evil).

[coax]

WHy is Harris completely unable or unwilling to reply to chomsky's points about Clinton's level of information and the context in which he made his decisions, etc/

I saw the harris interview on joe rogan and I kind of like to listen to him, but it seems he's suffering from novice thinker syndrome, and that his ideas are undercooked and lacks nuance, both in relation to morality and politics. Chomsky made it pretty clear that dubious claims of general 'good intentions' almost always fall apart on further inspection and carries no real information but harris still clings to it. Chomsky is obviously much more seasoned as a thinker and I hope harris can learn from this in the future. I think harris has a pretty good analytical mind (from a general process point of view, he can pick things apart etc), he just needs to expand his symbol database and be more open to new connections between them.

 

I can generally understand the point of view that the USA is the 'best alternative' we have for world order, and that we can even excuse atrocities government has made, but when it's laid out in such a clear manner as chomsky did here, harris just becomes stubborn and impossible to talk to. I think there is a valid discussion to be had about the role the US has played and is playing on the world stage, and it might not be as black and white as Chomsky seems to portray it. Granted he has worked a long time on it so his opinion carries a lot more weight to me than my own

[LimpyLoo]

JE, it's good that have this sort-of protection instinct for your sister. But you are clearly in retribution mode...Criticising positions SH doesn't actually hold, ad homonem-ing him, admitting you haven't actually read him, appealing to our dislike of nazi doctors, etc etc

 

You are now clearly in selection bias mode...there is zero chance that you would concede anything to SH (which is an indication that one is no longer in a good faith discussion). You are clearly in the mood to malign SH...and surely not reading him with an open mind, willing to be convinced one way or another, and you're probably just sifting through SH-related material looking for things that confirm your feelings for him.

 

For what it's worth, I found that SH/NC exchange a little embarrassing on SH's part, in that he escalated the bad vibes (seemingly without realizing it) and then was baffled by just how bad the vibes got.

[LimpyLoo]

WHy is Harris completely unable or unwilling to reply to chomsky's points about Clinton's level of information and the context in which he made his decisions, etc/

I saw the harris interview on joe rogan and I kind of like to listen to him, but it seems he's suffering from novice thinker syndrome, and that his ideas are undercooked and lacks nuance, both in relation to morality and politics. Chomsky made it pretty clear that dubious claims of general 'good intentions' almost always fall apart on further inspection and carries no real information but harris still clings to it. Chomsky is obviously much more seasoned as a thinker and I hope harris can learn from this in the future. I think harris has a pretty good analytical mind (from a general process point of view, he can pick things apart etc), he just needs to expand his symbol database and be more open to new connections between them.

 

I can generally understand the point of view that the USA is the 'best alternative' we have for world order, and that we can even excuse atrocities government has made, but when it's laid out in such a clear manner as chomsky did here, harris just becomes stubborn and impossible to talk to. I think there is a valid discussion to be had about the role the US has played and is playing on the world stage, and it might not be as black and white as Chomsky seems to portray it. Granted he has worked a long time on it so his opinion carries a lot more weight to me than my own

Yeah I was surprised at how undercooked Harris thoughts on this were.

 

Clearly, intentions figure into moral culpability. (How much, I don't know.)

 

But there is a sense in which monsters always have 'good intentions' and are serving higher goals: Hitler was sincerely trying to purify humanity (as eugenics and genocide usually are, however deplorably)

 

...so clearly morality is about more than trolley-like moral calculus, regardless of sincerity. I don't know. Clearly intentions matter. This is sort of like the zombie problem where...if you can't externally detect someone's intentions, how do we assign them moral responsibility? If results were all that mattered, then that would also lead to some problematic conclusions.

[eugene]

WHy is Harris completely unable or unwilling to reply to chomsky's points about Clinton's level of information and the context in which he made his decisions, etc/

I saw the harris interview on joe rogan and I kind of like to listen to him, but it seems he's suffering from novice thinker syndrome, and that his ideas are undercooked and lacks nuance, both in relation to morality and politics. Chomsky made it pretty clear that dubious claims of general 'good intentions' almost always fall apart on further inspection and carries no real information but harris still clings to it. Chomsky is obviously much more seasoned as a thinker and I hope harris can learn from this in the future. I think harris has a pretty good analytical mind (from a general process point of view, he can pick things apart etc), he just needs to expand his symbol database and be more open to new connections between them.

 

I can generally understand the point of view that the USA is the 'best alternative' we have for world order, and that we can even excuse atrocities government has made, but when it's laid out in such a clear manner as chomsky did here, harris just becomes stubborn and impossible to talk to. I think there is a valid discussion to be had about the role the US has played and is playing on the world stage, and it might not be as black and white as Chomsky seems to portray it. Granted he has worked a long time on it so his opinion carries a lot more weight to me than my own

because those points are irrelevant to an argument he's trying to make, i think he just doesn't want to get dragged into those poorly-sourced-factoid and conjectures wars that people like chomsky make their career off, it's a bottomless pit.

since that old debate with foucault it was clear that chomsky is simply incapable of comprehending that ideas, beliefs and discourse do matter, that the likelhood of an actor that has some belief in human rights to commit an atrocity is lower than that doesn't, when you control for for power.

when harris talks of good intentions it's pretty clear that he has a somewhat classical liberal vision of it, so when chomsky makes a claim that the fascist japs also had good intentions, well it's just a corny deflection because it's unlikely that he misunderstood harris on that.

[LimpyLoo]

It's not a corny deflection, though, as how one determines the 'goodness' of intentions is the whole problem here. It's not that he intentionally misunderstands Harris, but rather he was questioning Harris's 'good intentions' premise.

[eugene]

i meant that they also claimed to have good intentions.

[Alcofribas]

 

since that old debate with foucault it was clear that chomsky is simply incapable of comprehending that ideas, beliefs and discourse do matter, that the likelhood of an actor that has some belief in human rights to commit an atrocity is lower than that doesn't, when you control for for power.

 

 

 

couldn't have said it better.

[eugene]

It's not a corny deflection, though, as how one determines the 'goodness' of intentions is the whole problem here. It's not that he intentionally misunderstands Harris, but rather he was questioning Harris's 'good intentions' premise.

chosmky is not a post-modernist, quite the opposite, it's cleat that he believes in human rights as well and that's how harris plays with it too. his argument read pretty much like "are people who actually believe in human rights are as likely to commit human rights atrocities as people who don't?"

[LimpyLoo]

It seemed to me more that Chomsky was saying "do people who claim to believe in human rights, yet still commit atrocities, actually believe in human rights?"

[Alcofribas]

eugene, just curious, in what sense do you think the foucualt debate is relevant to this exchange with harris? and in what way do you think chomsky's very un-post-modernist worldview is being employed here?

[eugene]

It seemed to me more that Chomsky was saying "do people who claim to believe in human rights, yet still commit atrocities, actually believe in human rights?"

but that's a completely different question. harris is dealing with ideal types here, people who actually belive in human rights - do they act differently than those who don't? and if that's how chomsky meant it then he's simply saying/proposing that people can be hypocritical and deceitful, well ok, but how is it relevant to the argument that harris initiated?

[coax]

 

because those points are irrelevant to an argument he's trying to make, i think he just doesn't want to get dragged into those poorly-sourced-factoid and conjectures wars that people like chomsky make their career off, it's a bottomless pit.

since that old debate with foucault it was clear that chomsky is simply incapable of comprehending that ideas, beliefs and discourse do matter, that the likelhood of an actor that has some belief in human rights to commit an atrocity is lower than that doesn't, when you control for for power.

when harris talks of good intentions it's pretty clear that he has a somewhat classical liberal vision of it, so when chomsky makes a claim that the fascist japs also had good intentions, well it's just a corny deflection because it's unlikely that he misunderstood harris on that.

 

 

From the emails themselves I did not see evidence that Harris "didn't want to get dragged into a poorly-sourced-factoid war" though. Chomsky made pretty clear arguments about good intentions and he also questioned the intentions of people like Clinton, and the idea of sacrificing some for a goal, and Harris did not respond to it at all. It seemed like he was out of his league to me. As far as Chomsky is concerned, I have had similar objections with him about all the factoids and conjectures, but at least we can find the sources he uses. I personally have not hunted down all the original sources of all the events he talks about since I want to understand his general views.

 

So there's basic issues: 1) What does the ideas of an actor that has beliefs in human rights matter when those actors have a track record of murder and misery through their actions? and 2) How do we know what their ideas and beliefs really are on the ground when they make decisions like the al-shifa destruction where they consciously have to make decisions that harm people, and even worse, we don't have the complete views and history of the events?

 

These points clearly undermine Harris main point about the likelihood of an actor with good intentions committing bad acts in the world (especially since he's defending the USA specifically, NOT having a general debate about intentions separately from any specific country or event), and it's not based on conjecture. So basically there's deeper points about the whole situation and what this system is bringing us and others etc and Chomsky is looking for actual events to analyze