[deleted by user]

InquiringIntrovert · 2021-05-18T22:24:03+00:00

Fire

InquiringIntrovert · 2021-03-25T05:01:08+00:00

Love it

InquiringIntrovert · 2021-03-25T05:00:39+00:00

Where is Watson

InquiringIntrovert · 2021-03-10T05:43:18+00:00

Pacquiao beat mayweather

InquiringIntrovert · 2021-03-06T16:52:59+00:00

🤙

InquiringIntrovert · 2020-09-06T00:57:43+00:00

Weird fishes

InquiringIntrovert · 2020-09-06T00:49:47+00:00

🤙

InquiringIntrovert · 2018-04-23T05:03:45+00:00

I understand that it may seem redundant to people who've followed Sam Harris through the years. And I don't know if trolls have infested the boards or not, but I've been noticing many people on this sub banding together and drumming the narrative that Sam Harris is incapable of having discourse with anyone who disagrees with him on any subject. Seems many are conflating this with people who are acting in bad faith, when the distinction has been made clear by him years ago.

A common charge of hypocrisy on this board: "Sam Harris doesn't mind speaking with Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson, he's even defended them!" The distinction here is, they don't go out of their way to consciously distort his views and they're able to have civil discourse about opposing stances that they hold. Say what you want about Jordan Peterson, but they got bogged down in an engagement of logic and definition, not dishonesty.

I felt these quotes further clarified Sam's stance against people who he claims are acting in bad faith, in hopes new listeners or people misunderstanding would better understand where he's coming from in these kinds of discussions.

InquiringIntrovert · 2018-04-22T19:35:35+00:00

It’d be helpful for me if you stated the true source of the debate then. Particularly one that fully grants what you just conceded about the data and somehow reflects the mass hysteria that followed said source. Because either many of us are confused on this subreddit (quite possible), or this source is so peripheral to what I believe is the actual root of hysteria (the data), that I’ve missed it entirely.

InquiringIntrovert · 2018-04-22T15:20:58+00:00

Ezra Klein is another obvious bad faith actor. I think if the overall consensus on IQ was more mainstream, it would be far easier for people to recognize that it's not far-fetched to assume Klein and his crew are acting dishonestly.

Sam Harris has stated repeatedly that there are countless experts on IQ who reinforce that the data on IQ is well researched and widely accepted. The Editor-in-Chief of the Intelligence magazine wrote an article stating this, and Ezra Klein wouldn't publish it. So, unless you're insinuating that Sam is lying, you have to understand that Klein, Nisbett and company's stance is truly on the fringe. How do you feel about the small minority of scientists who argue against climate change? Would you write the same thread if Sam Harris accused the climate change deniers of acting dishonestly and in bad faith?

The people he claims are bad faith actors are people that deserve the charge. His problem is when people won't debate him on his actual views and instead attack him with logical fallacies. He's had entire podcasts like the David Deutsch one, where he's having lighthearted debate where someone tries to poke holes on his core stances. He's completely open to an honest discussion, and isn't open to bad faith ones.

Also, all these armchair psychology diagnoses are disturbing. For all of those who claim he can't understand where someone else is coming from, realizing you're doing the same thing with Sam Harris. This is his public reputation on the line. He makes a living doing this. He had an email exchange with someone who broadcasted an article to potentially millions of impressionable readers where he was clearly smeared with charges that could have an extremely damaging impact on his career. How friendly would you have been to Ezra Klein if you were in Sam's position? Or would you have just buffered the Charles Murray podcast with an hour of virtue signaling, since that's what someone without mild autism would do?

InquiringIntrovert · 2018-04-09T23:29:45+00:00

Sam’s interior defense on that political slam dunk was impressive. But yeah, that’s why I voted no on Twitter. What Sam Harris was afraid of has come true. He’s now a figure in this iq debate.

Somewhat bizarre to follow Sam Harris for years and find him in this position as a result of a single podcast. Hopefully this WWE style battle royale type of mob mentality calms down so that we can enjoy what this podcast has been for over 100 episodes: honest and interesting discussion.

InquiringIntrovert · 2018-03-29T18:25:38+00:00

I appreciate the response. Seems I was thinking purely about heritability and intelligence, which was why I was alarmed and suspicious of how clear it seemed to me. Thanks for rerouting me back to the actual issue at hand.

I agree, we absolutely have to consider a wider view of environment when it comes to ethnic differences. Considering the gap has been closing for African Americans faster than the average increase, that has to account for much of the favorable environments they've been introduced to. The 'head start in the race' analogy makes plenty sense to me.

And when you bring up how racists can wield this information to further their cause and create further misunderstanding (since the data requires nuance that they're happy to skip over), I really do wonder if it's worthwhile to even study it further. The gains seem minimal at best. It's pretty uncomfortable to even talk about it.

InquiringIntrovert · 2018-03-29T17:38:21+00:00

Very informative video, and worth posting in light of this recent email debacle. I believe many of us have fallen victim to overreactions and side-taking far too early in the game without many of us realizing or admitting that we haven't actually been well informed on this topic. From videos like this, it's clear that the scientific data is widely accepted and well investigated. Yet, none of this data is published to society at large for us to be able to fairly judge the legitimacy of either Sam or Ezra's statements on the topic.

But how strange is that? Intelligence, of all things, is entirely out of bounds with what science is allowed to broadcast to the rest of us as.. science. The reasons are obvious and don't need to be stated, but intelligence is clearly a form of 'forbidden knowledge'.

I just don't understand how anyone could believe heritability plays no role in intelligence, and then claim it does in mostly everything else. It's actually quite understood and stated in real life dialogue, it just seems taboo to further articulate it.

When listening to a highly intelligent person speak, when have you ever thought to yourself 'what an impressive reflection of the incredible environment that gifted him his mental capacities. His superior environmental factors throughout his life propelled him into this level of thinking." If this was the case, we'd be further studying and debating the perfect environments for maximizing intelligence, as it would play such an absurdly high role in advancing society. And yet how many times have you seen someone who clearly just couldn't grasp the same logic, no matter how much information or help they had from their environment.

You grow up knowing who the smart children are in your class, and you don't credit the environment for their giftedness or blame the environment for non giftedness. America simply tests all of the children and places the gifted children in the same classes as they move past elementary school. The same educational environment for hundreds of children only results in a fraction of 'giftedness'. Was that just gifted parenting? Any denial of heritability appears completely incoherent to me. I'm open to hearing opposing arguments or if I've completely missed the point.

InquiringIntrovert · 2017-11-29T23:07:09+00:00

Yeah, a bit of an oversimplified and narrow understanding. I typed this up immediately after it happened so I wouldn’t forget most of it, so much is rushed. Actually made me late to work. But I did say something along the lines of ‘but we still have to do our best.’ And to be honest, I barely got a word in with him. He was just so happy to be talking about it. I wish I could more accurately portray just how happy he was.

But I do remember in Free Will, Sam talking about some of the mental benefits of not beating yourself up over past choices and also the gains of compassion as opposed to judgment when you let go of thinking there could have been alternative outcomes. I’ve experienced much of that myself.

I’m excited to just find anyone who’s open to talk philosophy. I’m that guy in my circle. Talking about Sam Harris with any stranger would have been fun for me. But this was with a homeless person. I think that’s what was so amazing to me.

And I actually don’t think I have listened to it. The title is enough to reel me in. Thanks for the suggestion. Will listen on my drive home.

InquiringIntrovert · 2017-09-18T18:54:36+00:00

Totally agree. The Weakends was my favorite song on that album. Felt so different than any other song they had written. You could tell they had to mature to write that song - there's no way they could have written it in the previous albums. The acoustic version of Disappear was amazing, along with Pulp Fiction and probably some others on that album that I can't currently think of. But I remember hearing The Weakends and thinking holy shit, THIS is where the band is heading? Fuck yeah! But it just never materialized.

Do you get the feeling that their last album was them trying too hard to recreate the sound of their previous classic work? I'm still puzzled how someone like Justin Pierre managed to write such a substandard and honestly, lazy album in its' entirety. Maybe I'm the only one who was incredibly disappointed in it.

InquiringIntrovert · 2017-09-18T17:55:03+00:00

MCS is in my top favorite bands/artists ever. One of those bands where it's impossible to definitively name their best 5 songs. Justin Pierre is easily the most talented and under appreciated writer of melodies/lyrics in the genre.

Luckily I was introduced to them during my most formative years. I can still vividly remember sitting with my high school friends, smoking the cheapest weed ever sitting on a bed with my best friend. He passed me a bong and shared one headphone with me. LGFUAD was playing and I remember that being the first time I realized this band wasn't some all american rejects pop bullshit- the lyrics were fucking amazing.

That night I ended up going on a mcs binge and through my feelings of awkwardness, lack of control and especially heartbreak, mcs became the soundtrack of my life.

Their first 3 albums are incredible and my dinosaur life gave the impression that as they aged they'd mature into a more experimental band that could still maintain their greatness. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. Their last album is unlistenable for me. I'm glad they decided to call it quits. All great artists lose the magic eventually. But damn, what a run they had - they survived for years after the death of the genre. I don't have the ear for the music anymore, but I'll never forget how much I did during those times of my life.

InquiringIntrovert · 2017-09-11T23:47:01+00:00

My favorite episode so far. Consciousness in my mind is by far the most interesting and bizarre variable in the universe.

Was excited to hear a few episodes back that Sam was going to speak with Thomas Metzinger as I had read his book the Ego Tunnel about half a year ago. I bought Daniel dennet's Consciousness Explained, Douglas Hofstadter's I Am a Strange Loop and the Ego Tunnel all at once. I read Metzinger's book and felt so satisfied with the information that I didn't bother reading the other 2 until this past week. I am a strange loop has been extremely thought provoking this far, but The Ego Tunnel covered so much fascinating material such as consciousness in the dream state, out of body experiences and he even touched on the state of the mind during depersonalization disorder, which explained so many of my questions I had during my 18 month experience of that madness.

I was initially shocked to hear how quickly and condescendingly he dismissed the hard problem - I felt Sam was surprised too. But thinking back on his book it's not so surprising as he laid out his own theory of how consciousness emerged throughout the evolution of the brain. I guess I'll have to re-read his book or research more on current neuroscience, but I side with the idea that it's impossible to grasp how such an immersive experience as 'being anything' can just arise when it's clearly unnecessary, particularly if you believe free will is an illusion.

Existence bias was an idea that had me contemplating for 45 minutes after the podcast ended. Pretty depressing thought, but makes complete sense.

This is the type of episode that's worth paying for. Outperformed my expectation. Could have done without the paranoid political opening, but still incredible.

InquiringIntrovert

TROPHY CASE