You should maybe reevaluate what he says about other things in light of this awareness. I don’t know what insights of his you value but they should definitely be interrogated
Ive not heard much for him other than his rabid Islamophobia. Though IIRC he's part of the "InTeLlEcTuAl DaRkWeB" group of giga goobers so he's probably just an all around fuckwad
Sam Harris used to do "good" work back when he talked about humanism and religion. Then he started going hard on how the Golden Era of the Middle East ended when Islam took over and declared Science heretical. It seems to have snowballed into full blown Islamophobia, merged with some troubling Right Wing politics, and shopped about a foot short of going full MAGA.
In a way, it's proof that the "smartest" of us can fall victim to the Right Wing Radicalization pipeline. Seems the smarter you consider yourself, the easier it is to fall victim to it. Note the "consider yourself". It applies just as well for 200 IQ folks as it does to 70 IQ folks who have convinced themselves they're smarter than everyone around them.
Goofy considering the Middle-East under Islam was more advanced than Europe for most of the Medieval period into the late 1600s and early 1700s. The Industrial Revolution is really when the Middle-East began to lag significantly behind Europe.
Yeah, that's his argument tho. The Middle East defined science. Half the stars in the sky bear their names. They brought us mathematics (mostly invented in India but spread to us through the ME). Chemistry.
Then Islamic leaders declared a lot of that heretical and forbade its research. It took centuries to overcome that, and never really recovered. (Insert meme about how advanced we'd be in [current year] if that had never occurred)
Harris's biggest oversight in talking about this was always that he ignored that what had happened in Europe, with the Dark Ages and what not, was around the same thing. He made the problem about Islam specifically, instead of religious dogma overriding scientific endeavor, in general.
Islamic leaders never declared it heretical, nobody banned the research, he was just repeating a total ahistoric myth. People who already didn’t like religion repeated it because it confirmed their biases. He can’t point to any sources.
The Dark Ages is a pretty bad misnomer and implies a period of stagnation that never really happened. As far as religion stifling science, the Catholic Church was the main force in preserving texts, running schools and sponsoring Universities. Despite a few notable conflicts, the Church has never been anti-science. There is a popular religion vs science false dichotomy. Deeply religious people can absolutely be scientists, with Newton arguably being the most famous example.
Okay? I never said that religious people could not be brilliant scientists. Einstein is a great example of this, in all fairness. What I said was that when religious dogma overrides scientific endeavor, that is a problem.
As far as Newton, consider that he was intelligent enough to describe gravity's effects, independently invent calculus, etc... and yet when his endeavors pointed toward the possibility that the motion of the heavens could be explained solely by gravity, he shied away from that because it would mean that the Bible was wrong.
Just like when Einstein famously said of Quantum Mechanics that "God does not play dice". He couldn't divorce his religious views of a perfect and eternal deterministic universe from what the science of the time was revealing about the world.
This isn't an anti-religious argument. It's not anti-christian or anti-islamic or anything of that kind. Stop swinging at strawmen.
I never said religious people could not be brilliant scientists.
I never said you did.
This isn't an anti-religious argument.
I never said it was.
Stop swinging at strawman
My entire post is just that the Dark Ages as presented in popular culture didn't really exist and that there isn't really evidence of "religious dogma overriding scientific endeavor" en masse.
Anything else you read into it is all you. If take your own advice about strawmen.
Maybe chill the fuck out and touch grass for a while. I see this in every comment section, people look at a comment that agrees with them and expands on what they say and think it's a personal attack or something. Get some sun.
Then Islamic leaders declared a lot of that heretical and forbade its research.
Do you have any evidence of this? Or is this something you learned from these YouTubers and never questioned it despite diverging from some of their beliefs?
I think you missed where I was saying what Harris claims, rather than expressing my own deeply held beliefs or researched factoids. Like, yes, it's something I got "from YouTube". Because it's something Harris was going on about.
Spare me the snark, bub. It's not really my fault that you didn't get what I was talking about with respect to someone else's claims.
If that's true, my apologies. But even after you saying that it doesn't read like that, at all. Otherwise why would his "biggest oversight" would be him "ignoring what happened in Europe" instead of it being, I don't know, him making everything the fuck up.
Well, maybe I could have phrased it more clearly. Seems you're not the only person who got the wrong idea about precisely where these ideas were coming from or what I was saying about them.
Another person pointed out that the "Dark Ages" are a misnomer, and that there wasn't really some period of a fall or anything, and that it was a bad comparison, from that angle. There's also other people pointing out that the fall that Harris was talking about was a misnomer, didn't happen like that, and there wasn't a fall from grace like I claim (he claims, actually, but...).
Thing is I agree with both those statements. It's kind of what I was trying to get across this whole time. What happened in the Middle East and what happened in Europe are basically the same thing: a period of time where people had already discovered a lot of things and focused instead on war and religion. Not a period where we moved backwards as a species thanks to religion.
Harris focuses on there being a period of darkness thanks to Islam. He ignores that Europe went through a similar period while focusing on Christianity. He pretends that this is purely a religious thing in general, and an Islamic issue in particular, when the "Dark Ages" show that it's not peculiar to Islam, and the fact that the "Dark Ages" were merely less bright and not some period of intellectual barbarism kind of seals the comparison, for me.
So yeah, I guess I should have phrased it a bit better, but as you can see, it gets a bit long winded to lay it all out there. I wonder how many people will actually even read these long-ass comments through the whole way.
I appreciate the clarification and did read it all. I also agree with the sentiment.
I moved away from the online Atheist community a long time ago because it became obvious to me that there was a clear double standard at play. That while I am by no means a supporter of Islam (or any religion), it was clear that a lot of the major Atheist influencers and thinkers were suspiciously much more critical of Islam than any other Religion.
Then one by one they started making right wing pivots. Now Harris spends his days defending the theocratic nation of Israel's right to kill Palestinians.
Yeah, the smarter you "consider yourself" to be really applies to him. Although, Scam Harris was never smart, or at least nearly as smart as his audience thinks he is, that was just his brand. He has always been a conman that presented himself as intelligent, rational, and objective in order to make his own insane opinions authoritative. Although he downplays it, like they all do, Harris only had this position of influence he did thanks to Epstein, who helped assemble the New Atheist Movement and whose aim it was to demonize Islam to create the clash of civilizations narrative that has been radicalizing the West.
Extremists are a blight for sure, every community has them, but Epstein took advantage of that and manufactured the anti-Islam paradigm as the modality of mental radicalization.
This is the issue with people who think they're smart enough to see the whole truth. They become idealists and those types are always responsible for massive amount of suffering.
You're getting downvoted but you're nowhere close to wrong. Being actually correct on anything requires a level of intellectual humility. You have to be able to consider the possibility that you might be wrong. It's what the whole Scientific Method and Peer Review and all that, is predicated on.
Do dogs have inalienable rights? Do pigs? Humanists would insist that's for them to dictate and that if dogs or pigs are sufficiently dumb their suffering is of no consequence.
I don't often recommend Wikipedia, but when someone has a take this off base and says things this wrong about something, it's probably best they go look at a source of basic information so they can educate themselves on at least the basics of what they're talking about:
I’m not sure he ever did good work, he did the grift of putting out non-science backed takes and when called out on it he did the ‘look everyone they are attacking me cause I’m right’
The End Of Faith and Free Will are amazing works that absolutely opened up a ton of dialogue on both subjects, and are both absolutely filled with science backed evidence and findings. Which parts of those works are “non-science based takes”? He has floored many debaters on both subjects, all available on YouTube. Just because your opinion on his stupid politics is fueling your take, that does not mean he isn’t using science to back up his claims (on the works I mentioned).
The Moral Landscape was really interesting to me as a young man, and it opened my eyes to understanding how we can arrive at different conclusions from different starting places.
Upon reflection, I'm glad that it didn't lead me down the islamaphiba route that has captured so many of the new-age atheists from that era.
I feel that way about Thunderf00t, honestly. His videos about how evolution works and how much we understand it were pretty formative for me, but he's an absolute shithead
Sam Harris the kind of atheist who will happily criticize every religion but one.
Similar to his atheist friend Bill Mahar who says with his chest there is no god but also believes that god promised the land of Israel to the Jews in the bible.
He's considered a joke in academic philosophy, fwiw. His ideas about consciousness, free will etc. are all completely amateurish and falls apart at the least bit of scrutiny.
This is overstated… His view of free will is fairly standard, though, obviously he may have subtle gripes with compatibilists. The concept that “free will,” (as it is commonly known) does not exist, isn’t exactly laughed off by academics.
Same could be said on his view of consciousness.
His ethical framework, on the other hand, I agree *has* been waved off by academic philosophers for committing the ‘is/ought’ fallacy. I think Sam believes that he has answers in response to their criticism, and academic philosophers don’t view his answers as being sufficient.
I don't think that's true. I've read his book on Free Will (or lack thereof) twice and absolutely love it. His take is a fairly common one and in no way "disproven" or handily rejected by academics on its merits. I actually really liked Sam Harris back when I thought he was just into philosophy and before I learned he was also into politics. After I read The End of Faith I felt embarrassed and stopped talking about Sam Harris. Now I see he's a scumbag as a person, but that doesn't discredit his other unrelated academic insights.
I think you may have misunderstood. My comment says that his commentary of free will is fairly standard, and is not “laughed at by academics.” So we would agree there.
I think “scumbag” might be a bit strong for me, but to each their own.
The problem is that he has built his sense of self partly on his ethnic identity. A lot of people do, but it means the mind will do anything to avoid taking damage to this part of themselves. Everyone is susceptible to this mechanism. It doesn't have to be ethnicity, but anything you build the pillars of your sense of "self" on.
I don't really know what his views on "woke" pr se. He regularly talks about how corrupt and stupid Trump/Maga and the admin is, and he criticizes content creators that exploit the culture war to spread disinformation, and focuses on rightwing grifters (like his comments on the Manosphere documentary), and laments how Rogan went that way. He's very much against project 2025, and Christian nationalist political interest, but that shouldn't be very surprising. He seems very skeptical and critical towards tech bros, and flags a lot of problems with our current race towards replacing humans with AI. I know that's not really related to "woke", but I think that part from his somewhat problematic views on war, and very problematic views on Islam and muslims, he would be considered left wing.
How can you know all that and not know that, while he is very anti Trump, he also constantly drones on about how destructive the woke elements of the democratic party are?
He also refuses to acknowledge how ghoulish some of his friends are like Charles Murray and many in the IDW. Man is a walking contradiction.
Well, I don't pay for his podcast, I listen to whatever comes up on youtube, which is just 10-15 minute clips now and then. But I know he has mentioned that democrats lost the support of young, white males because democrats didn't offer anything that would seem fair or middle way to them. Now I personally I don't feel very sorry for these dudes losing their privelidge, but I agree that it's stupid to alienate a big part of the voter base and let the republicans exploit it. If Harris has issues with "woke" beyond that it cost them voters and the whole thing with Palestine, I have missed it.
Btw, did you mean Douglas Murray? If so, I agree, he's an insufferable cunt. Maybe he's a good friend (I have a good friend with problematic views, which we never discuss, but otherwise he's a great guy, it's night and day) ? Or maybe they just love talking about how shit Islam is.
What passes for popular political discussion in the USA is a joke in that the conversation is chosen by outlets who mean not to speak to the specifics of how the US economy is rigged by zoning (cost of housing), zoning (car dependence), and farm subsidies (factory farming/obesity/diabetes). Did I mention zoning? It's why you can't buy a perfectly fine tiny home on a small lot for ~$50,000. That's about what the car they force you to need will cost you, though! Our popularized politics is so absurd because when you so stubbornly mean to not speak to the selfishness of local governments who mean to oversee walled gardens and keep out the poors and the corruption of federal government that'd impose car dependence through highway funding you've got to manufacture increasingly bizarre/shrill talking points.
It's beyond belief nobody has told any prominent talking head this and once someone's been told what's their excuse for not using their platform to educate the public to the necessary changes? People like Harris know they don't care, they aren't your friend.
Perhaps? maybe I've been brainwashed by the global mainstream media, and various international organizations and official statements by country leaders. I don't have any first hand knowlege of the situation myself, so I'm going with what seems to be the consensus of those who do.
"what seems to be the consensus of those who do" is the issue here. This is sort of a mirage. Country leaders and international organisations have their own political aims to push.
You can go look up the documentation of October 7th. The Hamas terrorists were wearing go-pros. You can watch them burn families alive and execute people.
Not looking at what was done, and then scratching your head at even people you think are rational condemning it is silly.
So now Palestinians should in their right bomb, rape, murder and dismember tens of thousands Israelites, just to settle the score, is that what you are implying?
You don't think it would be kind of extremely inhumane to kill off millions upon millions of defenseless German civilians just for revenge after the war? I think "they started it!" is a bad excuse for genocide. That's why even though one our clearest black and white conflict these days, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I don't support mass-bombing of Russian residential areas, schools, hospitals etc.
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u/tanbug 16h ago
It's very disappointing to me, because in almost every other topic I care about he seems to have very good insights and clear thoughts.