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Snapz ,

All that golden girls money, wasted… sam harris is not your friend, people.

vegai OP ,

He’s also not your buddy, pal.

JTode ,

Fuck this fuck with fucks

Tolstoshev ,

Takes one to know one.

gardylou ,

Definitely ironic coming from this over-rated torture rationalizing thought experiments in the place of evidence and historical fact touting asshole.

Cruxifux ,

I wish Sam Harris wasn’t a white supremacist because I like some of his shit. :/

ChapolinColoradoNZ ,

He isn’t a white supremacist…

kamenoko ,

He’s not the biggest fan of Muslims.

P1r4nha ,

Isn’t it just religious fundamentalist in general?

ls64 ,

Yes and no, he is nominally against all religious fundamentalism but he reserves a special hatred for Islam. He never talks about Jewish and Christian terrorism while constantly parroting about Islamic terrorism.

Jack_of_all_derps ,

It’s been a minute, but the guy wrote an open letter that was long enough to put in book form, A Letter to a Christian Nation.

Disclaimer: I haven’t kept up with his stuff since the late 2000’s so can’t speak to more recent offerings of his or his views, just figured it’s worth pointing out.

ChapolinColoradoNZ ,

He’s not the biggest fan of extremists and so ain’t I.

kamenoko ,

He really dislikes the brown ones.

ChapolinColoradoNZ ,

Sauce or is lies.

ls64 ,

Not in the most common sense but his views and attitude towards anything not white and christian are extremely similar to white supremacists.

religiondispatches.org/is-sam-harris-really-a-whi…

cedarmesa , (edited )
@cedarmesa@lemmy.world avatar

💀

z3rOR0ne ,

Conflating white supremacy with islamaphobia isn’t a mistake, it’s a correlation.

darq ,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

He's also transphobic. The age of assholes includes Sam Harris.

vegai OP ,

He could be what trans activists call “transphobe”, but that is a rather open-ended term. And you might well argue that trans activists themselves are assholes as well.

Not sure what all that implies then. Nothing useful, probably.

darq ,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

I mean he's defended JK Rowling, and argues that we shouldn't use inclusive language. So yeah, he's a transphobe.

And sure if you deliberately both-sides every argument, you can pretend there's nothing useful being said, and ignore both! Very convenient that!

vegai OP ,

Defending JK Rowling doesn’t make someone transphobic.

darq ,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

If one is defending her, rather virulent, transphobia, I'd argue it does constitute "doing a transphobia" actually.

vegai OP ,

Eddie Izzard defends her, but who knows what that means then. That’s what I’m kinda referring to when I say that “transphobic” is nebulous at best.

darq ,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

Well, the important thing is that you have learned how to ignore that particular bigotry entirely. Well done!

vegai OP ,

Yeah, this discussion has done wonders for my abilities there.

ProvableGecko ,

No, no we definitely know. If you defend unrepentant transphobes you yourself are a transphobe and should go fuck yourself.

BloodForTheBloodGod ,

Izzard who is, famously, not trans.

ChapolinColoradoNZ ,

“hey peeps, homophobe here!” Such hypocrites not even noticing.

vegai OP ,

Not noticing what?

vegai OP ,

Izzard who is, famously, not trans.

Uhh, are you sure about that?

astral_avocado ,

Virulent? She’s got the most basic opinions of your average American moderate. You don’t know what virulent looks like, and if you want to know just browse ovarit for a bit.

darq ,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

The average US moderate does not give a toss about transgender people. Meanwhile JK Rowling has made ranting about this tiny minority a huge part of her personal brand. She tweets constantly about transgender people. So the idea that her opinions are that of an average US moderate are laughable, to say the least.

JKR thinks she's fighting Death Eaters, fictionalised fascists, for goodness sakes.

And JKR regularly moves to support people like Kellie-Jay Keen, who straight up says the more extreme parts out loud. For example Keen suggests that US men should use women's toilets and threaten any women they think might be trans with a gun. JKR has gone so far as to offer monetary support for Keen, so she can file SLAP suits against people criticising her online.

So yes. Virulent.

ChapolinColoradoNZ ,

He’s not against the use of inclusive language, rather he’s against compelled speech. There’s no law ordering us all to use he/she/it or else but when the matter becomes “inclusive” then it is basically mandated or face consequences and somehow people are okay with that? Insane.

darq ,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

Firstly, that was not what I was referring to, when I mentioned that he's against inclusive language. I was referring to inclusive and accurate language in medical settings.

But secondly, nobody is compelling speech. Not any more than anyone is compelled to refer to someone by their name. You can call anybody anything you like. Other people might just think you're being an asshole, if you choose to refer to someone in deliberately disrespectful ways.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of that speech.

ChapolinColoradoNZ , (edited )

Doctors have to 100% respect their patient’s wishes but treatment has to be delivered in a biological sense. There’s no good reason to not point out to a patient that this or that treatment is the best course of action based on their biological make up, even if that may hurt or even offend some people. There’s no way a patient could make informed decisions about their own health otherwise. If the doctors don’t do that then they become liable for the wrong diagnoses or treatments they prescribe.

I mostly agree with the second half of your comment though. What I disagree is that people seem to be very quick to stereotype anything that doesn’t fit the narrative as supremacist and the likes. That’s not constructive at all to say the least. If we want change we need to promote change in a good and positive sense because otherwise will mean shutting that communication’s door with a lot of people.

I’ve heard something that made sense and went like: “I’ve never seen a racist person stop being racist for being called a racist”. Yes real racists must be punished for doing what they do but we can’t generalise and call everybody a racist for things they’re mostly ignorant about. They need to be informed and invited to follow a better path.

darq , (edited )
@darq@kbin.social avatar

Doctors have to 100% respect their patient’s wishes but treatment has to be delivered in a biological sense. There’s no good reason to not point out to a patient that this or that treatment is the best course of action based on their biological make up, even if that may hurt or even offend some people. There’s no way a patient could make informed decisions about their own health otherwise. If the doctors don’t do that then they become liable for the wrong diagnoses or treatments they prescribe.

You do not know what I am talking about. Please stop making wild assumptions about what I mean. You are making up nonsense narratives to argue against.

Nobody is saying doctors shouldn't treat people in line with their current biology. Which by the way, for trans people is more complicated than just treatment based on sex at birth.

Trans people want inclusive and accurate terminology to be used. Talking about prostate cancer? Refer to "people with prostates". That is accurate and inclusive.

People like Sam Harris say we shouldn't do that, and only ever say "men" or "women" even if that is both less accurate and invalidating towards trans people.

The rest of your comment has little to do with what I said before. So I'm not going to go chasing after it. I give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm also not going to waste time trying to convince a person who doesn't want to be convinced to be less bigoted. Convincing the racist to be less racist often isn't the goal.

vegai OP ,

Is he, though?

Cruxifux ,

What else do you call someone who promotes the idea that black people are inherently dumber than white people on a genetic level? Like… I don’t understand how you can be more blatantly white supremacist than that.

vegai OP ,

What else do you call someone who promotes the idea that black people are inherently dumber than white people on a genetic level?

I wouldn’t call that person Sam Harris, whoever they are.

Cruxifux ,

Well that’s what Sam Harris says he believes so I don’t understand why you’re trying to say he doesn’t. I mean it sucks, but that’s what he believes.

Noedel ,

Wait what? I literally only use his meditation app and it’s changed my life. What’s the vibe here?

Cruxifux ,

He did a podcast years ago when I used to listen to his stuff where he had a black guy who believed white people were superior and Sam agreed with him, using him as proof that it can’t be racist because a black guy believed it. Sam many times in it described himself as a white supremacist, but you could tell by his tone that he believed it meant something different for him, because Sam is nothing if not egotistical. It also seemed to be done in protest against, idk, the blowback that people get when pursuing knowledge that could be seen as racist? Anyway it was stupid as all fuck and it was the last one I listened to.

senkora ,

I think it’s okay to separate the work from the author in this case. As you say, he’s made some really neat stuff that stands on its own merits.

And given that he is essentially a professional contrarian it isn’t surprising that he’s had some misses as well.

Cruxifux ,

Well, until he changes his stance that black people are inherently dumber than white people on a genetic level I’m gonna have a hard time doing that.

vox.com/…/sam-harris-charles-murray-race-iq-forbi…

senkora ,

Suit yourself. I obviously don’t agree with that stance of his. But sometimes bad people still produce interesting works that are worth learning from, such as the submission in this post.

vegai OP ,

Harris and Murray are clear that for all their discussion of group differences, people should be judged on their singular merits. “To have political equality, you have to treat people as individuals,” says Harris. “It’s ethically and politically prudent to do this, and here’s the crucial point, it’s actually rational to do this because the differences between groups are not so large that there isn’t a substantial overlap between them for every trait we care about.”

Does this make it easier?

The flip side of all this is that white people are “inherently dumber” than many far eastern people. How does that resonate with thinking that these claims support white supremacy?

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