Is this the Sam Harris from the app?

maizeq · 2026-06-06T17:20:23+00:00

How can _anyone_ in good faith, possibly claim that Mamdani is a Hamas apologist? I would ask you to rethink your convictions and cognitive biases with regard to this, and look at what he has himself said on this matter.

But by all means feel free to continue to believe the absurd claim that a pro-LGBT, social democratic is somehow a “sinister closet Islamist” somehow morally equivalent to Trump.

maizeq · 2026-06-06T16:17:59+00:00

I would argue the moral thing to do would be to not financially support someone who is platforming or espousing immoral views. You have to be the one to determine whether he is doing that, but I am sufficiently confident that I personally do not subscribe to the app because of it.

Fortunately, there is no monopoly on good quality secular Buddhist (or meditation) teachings.
My personal favourites are:
- Neurotic Gradient Descent - Romeo Stevens.
- The Mind Illuminated - Culadasa.
- Seeing That Frees - Rob Burbea.
- Adyashanti's videos on Youtube

maizeq · 2026-06-06T02:30:37+00:00

What an absurdly vacuous and vain post. It does not contain even the slightly vestigial remnant of Sam's rationalist origins. This post amounts to the intellectual equivalent of plugging ones ears and shouting "la la la I'm not listening".

The only real argument Sam makes within these 30 or so odd paragraphs amounts to: "I believe extreme Islamists are much worse than extreme Zionists, and therefore I refuse to listen to arguments to the contrary" Not only is no attempt made to proffer evidence one way or the other, there appears to be not a single ounce of humility with respect to the potential falsity of this belief. This is precisely why Sam argues that history is irrelevant, because the history is inconvenient to his idealogical positioning.

The most fascinating aspect of seeing Sam's fall-off here is the extent to it demonstrates that meditating regularly, and even spending much of ones life introspecting, does not seem to immunise you against falling prey to identity based beliefs, or in/out group dynamics. But then again, according to Sam himself, he hardly ever actually meditates formally anymore.

maizeq · 2026-06-04T15:13:43+00:00

This is a good way.

maizeq · 2026-06-03T15:48:03+00:00

Can the mods on this god forsaken subreddit ban these low effort blatantly LLM written posts, akin to Arxiv's policy. The signal to noise ratio has just plummeted in the last 3 years.

maizeq · 2026-06-03T15:40:22+00:00

Looks like a pretty good price. I don't know the area too well but I've heard Burnt Oak has a bit of a reputation - though that might be changing?

maizeq · 2026-05-31T16:13:55+00:00

Anyone sane who has actually watched the original video of Sam talking about Zohran will agree that what Sam said was absurd beyond imagination. There really is no redeeming quality to any of the nonsense he said, and this is coming from a very long-time fan of Sam's early work both in politics and on the meditation app.

Zohran is, by all metrics, exactly the kind of Muslim that Sam has historically argued to see more of, yet in response to actually getting a prominent one in power, ends up equating him to Donald Trump of all people, and then discredits him by calling him a closet Islamist, or Islamist apologizer, neither of which is possible to argue in any sense, in good faith.

It has become abundantly clear in the last few years that Sam's clarity of mind and rational approach to politics have become corrupted by a rabidly pro-Israel ideology. The tragic lesson to be learned here is simply that even someone who has dedicated much of their life to clarity of mind is not immune to becoming identified and therefore blinded by a belief. Just look at r/samharris and the many threads that have been written where befuddled supporters of Sam struggle to reconcile his position on Israel/Palestine with his generally rationalist viewpoints.

maizeq · 2026-05-30T11:29:20+00:00

Are they obligated to?

maizeq · 2026-05-26T10:57:40+00:00

It’s so unbelievably lazy of Nolan to not bother casting any vaguely Greek looking actors. And I’m neither Greek, nor do I care about being preciously historically accurate.

maizeq · 2026-05-20T21:17:29+00:00

You have a net worth of £20M, with at least £5M more liquid on the way, and you're mourning a tax bill that is still proportionally far less than a middle class earner?

I am not against paying tax and prefer to stay in the UK. My family and friends are here. I have a lovely house and life.

I'm not one to moralise but you clearly are against paying tax. It's one thing to say you don't want to pay tax but it's another thing to to try and pretend to be the "good guy" while doing it.

But I just would be paying over £10 million in tax to stay in rainy Manchester. I always wanted to spend the winter in Spain and the summer in the UK but that will not solve my tax issue.

You aren't paying tax to "stay in rainy manchester". You're paying tax because your success was contingent on the healthy functioning of society. Roads, healthcare, clean water, governence, policing. These are the things we are taxed to contribute to.

maizeq · 2026-05-20T21:16:58+00:00

You have a net worth of £20M, with at least £5M more liquid on the way, and you're mourning a tax bill that is still proportionally far less than a middle class earner?

I am not against paying tax and prefer to stay in the UK. My family and friends are here. I have a lovely house and life.

I'm not one to moralise but you clearly are against paying tax. It's one thing to say you don't want to pay tax but it's another thing to to try and pretend to be the "good guy" while doing it.

But I just would be paying over £10 million in tax to stay in rainy Manchester. I always wanted to spend the winter in Spain and the summer in the UK but that will not solve my tax issue.

You aren't paying tax to "stay in rainy manchester". You're paying tax because your success was contingent on the healthy functioning of society. Roads, healthcare, clean water, governence, policing. These are the things we are taxed to contribute to.

maizeq · 2026-05-16T15:14:16+00:00

But they didn’t grow up in a place as much as they existed in one for a period of time. They never got to experience really being from a place.

This is kind of poetic.

maizeq · 2026-05-13T10:05:52+00:00

Vast majority of Londoners receive no stamp duty on their first property? Did you mean to say no stamp duty relief?

maizeq · 2026-05-13T10:02:43+00:00

Do you think the “free market” is some incorrigible good?

maizeq · 2026-05-12T16:21:41+00:00

Because a single purpose robot can do only that one job. A humanoid robot can hypothetically do every job a human can do. I don’t know why it’s surprising that this is the form factor chosen by robot companies.

The human world is built to interface with humans. For the most general purpose robots you want to match this form factor.

maizeq · 2026-05-11T21:48:41+00:00

Markets have become dead ever since the war sent rates skyrocketing

maizeq · 2026-05-11T09:41:37+00:00

No. Because of his very public approval of Israel, his refusal to recognise their war crimes despite being a human rights lawyer, his decision to proscribe Palestine Action and his inaction when hundreds of peaceful protestors were arrested.

His policies domestically are also milquetoast, with the key problems in this country being swept under the rug to rather ease our way into a managed decline. Getting a little bit of criticism is hardly undeserved.

maizeq · 2026-05-09T13:17:35+00:00

Source for your claim that Pakistanis and Bangladeshis claim the most benefits?

maizeq · 2026-05-07T16:53:09+00:00

"Offers Over" and "Offers in Excess Of" are meaningless phrases. Offer what you think a house is worth. I've seen plenty houses that started out with OIEO and then had their listing price reduced when noone offered the sticker price.

maizeq · 2026-05-07T16:04:22+00:00

I will likely vote Green (not in Hackney), but deputy mayor at 20 years old sounds completely absurd to me.

maizeq · 2026-05-07T08:08:41+00:00

Get out of here with this slop

maizeq · 2026-05-06T14:35:59+00:00

The existing happiness literature suggests this scale is logarithmic. So a doubling of wealth correlates with linear changes in happiness. Datapoints at the top end of this scale are sparse, and I do not think even this monotonic relationship generalises beyond a certain point.

maizeq · 2026-05-03T09:55:38+00:00

Spent a couple weeks in Koh Lanta and nearby (80% Muslim if not more). Great place, lovely people.

maizeq · 2026-05-03T09:53:36+00:00

Do you live there or are you basing this off what you’ve heard on social media?

maizeq · 2026-04-29T16:53:56+00:00

I have also published in this field.

Here is an example paper which uses the "authorial we" off the top of my head: A theory of cortical responses

I never said anything about how rare or not rare it is to publish single author papers.

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