I am an avid listener of Harris's podcasts, and usually either agree with his stances or at least appreciate how they have a logical basis that explains why he believes what he does but I always...
I am an avid listener of Harris's podcasts, and usually either agree with his stances or at least appreciate how they have a logical basis that explains why he believes what he does but I always bristle a bit when he talks at length about race (as he did in a similar podcast from 2016).
Though he is a champion of performing thought experiments, he seems to ignore or have a serious problem discussing the myriad of ways black people have been beaten down since slavery was made illegal. He can't/won't empathize with the day-to-day BS that comes with being black in America and instead focuses on statistics about how many black people are killed by police every year vs. white or gives a speech which basically breaks down to "If you didn't resist arrest you wouldn't be having any of the problems you're having."
It's worth the 2-hour listen and there is much more to be said here, but as much as like and respect the man I really wish he would utilize a bit more empathy and emotion when considering what it is like to be someone very different than himself.
Very much still processing this. Initial thoughts: a) I would really like to see his source list. He focuses quite a bit on specific numbers, and with the exception of the NYC study, doesn’t tell...
Very much still processing this. Initial thoughts:
a) I would really like to see his source list. He focuses quite a bit on specific numbers, and with the exception of the NYC study, doesn’t tell you where they are from. Why not link a review paper or links to research on the topic in the show notes? Did I just miss them? Being familiar with Sam I’m sure these numbers exist somewhere, but he also talked about how much we don’t know on the subject of police violence, and how difficult it is for “ordinary people” to determine what is the truth. It seems odd to ask me to judge the validity of his arguments (not that I’m sure I would be able to anyways) if I can’t read the sources he used to come to them in this context. edit: he’s also assuming the statistics are accurate, shouldn’t we take them with the same grain of salt we’re told to take the polls with? Are there no powerful forces who’s existence relies on maintaining that status quo?
b) If we take Sam at his word... it seems very hard to place blame on people resisting arrest after spending quite a bit of time detailing the ways that people of color are in higher levels of physical contact with the police, and in a state of media misinformation on the frequency of these events (and implications on racism therein), and that police are wildly under trained to handle these types of situations. How would you expect people to react in a situation where they believe their life and health are in danger? Why is only one side responsible for the lack of de-escalation? Why is lack of training on the part of the police not just as responsible? Maybe BLM should be preaching knowing your rights, de-escalating etc. (if they’re not already), but leaving out police training and (if we buy his hypotheses on frequency) media narratives ... why is it incumbent on them to solve the problem?
c) When listing ways people resist arrest, he brings up “Furtive movements” towards the belt. He seems to ignore how easily these tactics can be used to incarcerate. More broadly, as been shown time and again in the last few weeks (and before), Police lie. Maybe the time to criticize/shout at/complain about an officer is at the station with a lawyer, but how does that work in a system that is designed to get people to plead out and pay court fines they can’t afford?
d) that not to say he doesn’t have points worth considering... notably on inequalities’ role in policing, the media’s ad-based incentive towards inflammation (though again, why does Fox get a pass on this?) and his view of what a egalitarian future might look like. But the whole liberal identity politics / white nationalist analogy was... a bit strange, especially when the enablers of white nationalism are the voices that loudly decry the use of identity politics by POC... it cuts both ways. Why not spend your time digging into the numerous issues you’ve identified? How are they the lesser evil there?
If Sam Harris thinks everyone should not resist and feel safe in police custody then I challenge him to learn a little bit about the Saskatoon Starlight Tours and see if he still thinks the same way.
If Sam Harris thinks everyone should not resist and feel safe in police custody then I challenge him to learn a little bit about the Saskatoon Starlight Tours and see if he still thinks the same way.
For those unaware: https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/new-light-on-saskatoons-starlight-tours/ Or more relevant to Mr. Harris (since he's American), the Chicago PD black site comes to mind:...
I haven't listened. I liked some of his stuff years and years ago, though more recently I've been disappointed by him on social issues and I don't think he engages with them effectively in good...
I haven't listened. I liked some of his stuff years and years ago, though more recently I've been disappointed by him on social issues and I don't think he engages with them effectively in good faith.
context
Everything from him in his arguments with Ezra Klein about him platforming Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, was just nails on chalkboard. In every argument, Sam acts like the only social issue that matters is an academic like himself being criticized, and attacks a strawman as if the only reason you would disagree with him was because you didn't believe in the value of objective reality and you were biased by identity politics, unlike himself. I really can't get over that every time that Ezra says Sam is also being tribalistic, Sam just rebukes it with basically a plain "no I'm not, that's something only your tribe does. I don't do it with a guy I've explained I see similar to myself in how he faces criticism". The icing on the cake is that TBC was pretty bad science, which isn't that surprising given Murray's biases that Ezra pointed out and Harris ignored while explaining how Ezra's biases disqualified his position.
In the context of those past issues, I found myself agreeing with Ezra here about Sam Harris:
I think you're very sensitive to the possible cost of a backlash framed around what you would call political correctness and a lot less sensitive — which is what I keep coming back to — to the cost this idea has actually had for African Americans in this country throughout American history.
If that still describes Sam Harris, I don't expect I have much to learn from him about the protests. I feel like I already have a good mental model of the centrist and anti-sjw takes on the protests. Maybe I'm not being very charitable here, but I wouldn't be surprised if he admits the high profile incidents are problems that should be dealt with individually, but says that the bigger problems are the tribalism of the people making this point, people throwing around accusations of racism, and people believing that these are systemic issues that could be solved generally. Maybe he'll bring up some good points along the way, but I expect he's going to have a very lopsided view of their importance relative to other things. I hope I'm off the mark here a bit, but I don't consider him to have a good track record in this area, and I'm leaning towards letting others evaluate this specific podcast.
Also, I coincidentally saw this Twitter thread about the podcast in my timeline that seems to confirm some of my suspicions and bring up good criticisms.
I know it's generally a faux pas to comment without reading the article, and especially rude for me to assert that it's okay for me to do that, but hopefully it helps that I did put some real effort into this comment that's relevant both to people who are or aren't listening to the podcast, and mine isn't the first comment made here so hopefully I haven't drowned out others who are more directly engaging with the material.
I am an avid listener of Harris's podcasts, and usually either agree with his stances or at least appreciate how they have a logical basis that explains why he believes what he does but I always bristle a bit when he talks at length about race (as he did in a similar podcast from 2016).
Though he is a champion of performing thought experiments, he seems to ignore or have a serious problem discussing the myriad of ways black people have been beaten down since slavery was made illegal. He can't/won't empathize with the day-to-day BS that comes with being black in America and instead focuses on statistics about how many black people are killed by police every year vs. white or gives a speech which basically breaks down to "If you didn't resist arrest you wouldn't be having any of the problems you're having."
It's worth the 2-hour listen and there is much more to be said here, but as much as like and respect the man I really wish he would utilize a bit more empathy and emotion when considering what it is like to be someone very different than himself.
Very much still processing this. Initial thoughts:
a) I would really like to see his source list. He focuses quite a bit on specific numbers, and with the exception of the NYC study, doesn’t tell you where they are from. Why not link a review paper or links to research on the topic in the show notes? Did I just miss them? Being familiar with Sam I’m sure these numbers exist somewhere, but he also talked about how much we don’t know on the subject of police violence, and how difficult it is for “ordinary people” to determine what is the truth. It seems odd to ask me to judge the validity of his arguments (not that I’m sure I would be able to anyways) if I can’t read the sources he used to come to them in this context. edit: he’s also assuming the statistics are accurate, shouldn’t we take them with the same grain of salt we’re told to take the polls with? Are there no powerful forces who’s existence relies on maintaining that status quo?
b) If we take Sam at his word... it seems very hard to place blame on people resisting arrest after spending quite a bit of time detailing the ways that people of color are in higher levels of physical contact with the police, and in a state of media misinformation on the frequency of these events (and implications on racism therein), and that police are wildly under trained to handle these types of situations. How would you expect people to react in a situation where they believe their life and health are in danger? Why is only one side responsible for the lack of de-escalation? Why is lack of training on the part of the police not just as responsible? Maybe BLM should be preaching knowing your rights, de-escalating etc. (if they’re not already), but leaving out police training and (if we buy his hypotheses on frequency) media narratives ... why is it incumbent on them to solve the problem?
c) When listing ways people resist arrest, he brings up “Furtive movements” towards the belt. He seems to ignore how easily these tactics can be used to incarcerate. More broadly, as been shown time and again in the last few weeks (and before), Police lie. Maybe the time to criticize/shout at/complain about an officer is at the station with a lawyer, but how does that work in a system that is designed to get people to plead out and pay court fines they can’t afford?
d) that not to say he doesn’t have points worth considering... notably on inequalities’ role in policing, the media’s ad-based incentive towards inflammation (though again, why does Fox get a pass on this?) and his view of what a egalitarian future might look like. But the whole liberal identity politics / white nationalist analogy was... a bit strange, especially when the enablers of white nationalism are the voices that loudly decry the use of identity politics by POC... it cuts both ways. Why not spend your time digging into the numerous issues you’ve identified? How are they the lesser evil there?
If Sam Harris thinks everyone should not resist and feel safe in police custody then I challenge him to learn a little bit about the Saskatoon Starlight Tours and see if he still thinks the same way.
For those unaware:
https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/new-light-on-saskatoons-starlight-tours/
Or more relevant to Mr. Harris (since he's American), the Chicago PD black site comes to mind:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-detain-americans-black-site
I wish there was a way for Sam Harris to see these posts and respond to them
I haven't listened. I liked some of his stuff years and years ago, though more recently I've been disappointed by him on social issues and I don't think he engages with them effectively in good faith.
context
Everything from him in his arguments with Ezra Klein about him platforming Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, was just nails on chalkboard. In every argument, Sam acts like the only social issue that matters is an academic like himself being criticized, and attacks a strawman as if the only reason you would disagree with him was because you didn't believe in the value of objective reality and you were biased by identity politics, unlike himself. I really can't get over that every time that Ezra says Sam is also being tribalistic, Sam just rebukes it with basically a plain "no I'm not, that's something only your tribe does. I don't do it with a guy I've explained I see similar to myself in how he faces criticism". The icing on the cake is that TBC was pretty bad science, which isn't that surprising given Murray's biases that Ezra pointed out and Harris ignored while explaining how Ezra's biases disqualified his position.
In the context of those past issues, I found myself agreeing with Ezra here about Sam Harris:
If that still describes Sam Harris, I don't expect I have much to learn from him about the protests. I feel like I already have a good mental model of the centrist and anti-sjw takes on the protests. Maybe I'm not being very charitable here, but I wouldn't be surprised if he admits the high profile incidents are problems that should be dealt with individually, but says that the bigger problems are the tribalism of the people making this point, people throwing around accusations of racism, and people believing that these are systemic issues that could be solved generally. Maybe he'll bring up some good points along the way, but I expect he's going to have a very lopsided view of their importance relative to other things. I hope I'm off the mark here a bit, but I don't consider him to have a good track record in this area, and I'm leaning towards letting others evaluate this specific podcast.
Also, I coincidentally saw this Twitter thread about the podcast in my timeline that seems to confirm some of my suspicions and bring up good criticisms.
I know it's generally a faux pas to comment without reading the article, and especially rude for me to assert that it's okay for me to do that, but hopefully it helps that I did put some real effort into this comment that's relevant both to people who are or aren't listening to the podcast, and mine isn't the first comment made here so hopefully I haven't drowned out others who are more directly engaging with the material.
Sam Harris' take on the recent protests. If you prefer reading, here is a transcript generated by LiveTranscribe (from Reddit): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HYKvpG4wwHAuqfeC2El7gJxRs1EmHYVtuns-foIS0wk/edit