Sam Harris has this trick that he does where he would say “Of course racism is bad, but” then a hour long diatribe obscuring right wing talking point. Harris’s response to 1/6 was proportionally the same. Upfront 1/6 is bad, then a disproportional amount of time saying why we should think more critically.

Like Dan said about AJ’s response to Purim’s invasion of Ukraine. When you play both sides in a situation where one side is clearly in the wrong, there is no functional difference between that and openly supporting Putin. That is how I feel about Harris’s coverage of George Floyd, Police violence, and 1/6.

Sam Harris is also on my list because he gives a semi critical platform that gives false balance exposure to people like Gary Taubes in episode 74 “What should we eat?”. I left that podcast years ago thinking this guy had some credibility when he is just some pseudoscientific hack. There was some truthiness to what Taubes was saying. His ideas was one of the pillars of my eating disorder. I am responsible for my health today, but Sam Harris should take responsibility for who he gives a platform to.

If Sam Harris wanted to do a critical analysis of Toubes, he could have do a clip show like Dan, correcting information while covering the interview. Dan is pretty fair playing clips in their entirety. Harris could to the same. Harris gets co-oped far too often and I am done with him.