What? There's no debate. The dude openly, unabashedly, repeatedly advocates race-based profiling, open war against muslims in the general sense, etc.

There quite simply is no fight to be had. Saying there is is just you having your head in it's usual place, under the sand.

Yes, harris is quite skilled at writing emails. There's no dispute there, either.

Hey guys don't worry, Sam Harris isn't racist because he wrote this really good email in which he explicitly claims that he isn't. Just ignore that part where one of the quotes he uses to show how unracist he is says that all of human civilization is at risk because of muslim immigrants in europe. Oh what a lively debate!

Yeah, he said we shouldn't be frisking children and little old ladies at airports as often as people who are more likely to actually be terrorists.

Look, I understand you enjoy calling you some people some racist, and the profiling debate has for the most part been settled with our policy of sending everyone (no matter how unlikely they are to be carrying a boxcutter in their bum) through the nude picture machine, so to avoid offending anyone we offend everyone, but there are actually areas where decent people can disagree. I'm not saying he's right, but when people simplify points down and pull them out of context in order to discredit others it is not fair or honest.

Harris responds to some of the things you've been repeating here:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/r...to-controversy

Jesus Christ foldn

Apparently you and super genius Sam Harris are unaware that "only hassle brown people" and "hassle grandmas and little kids" are not the only two options when it comes to security screens. The fact that the latter is useless doesn't mean the former is better (and, interestingly, your argument here doesn't do anything to dispute accusations of racism. It's effectively "well it might be racist but it works!" Even though it actually doesn't ****ing work at all).

Cliffnotes: lol @ u

This is a sort of telling way of framing the debate, because those two choices aren't actually mutually exclusive. But here we see the two sides:

1) Should Muslims, 1.6 billion people, be treated differently because of an ever shifting justification between actual acts by extremists, literal readings of their holy texts, and so forth? This is a "tough question"! There's no easy answer to whether countries should create tiers of civil rights based on religion.

2) Are internet liberals too mean when they make fun of Ben Carson if they don't also mention 9/11? FOOD FOR THOUGHT. Obama's war on Christianity, Cybersnark Division. How come Pamella Gellar gets called mean names on the internet but libtards love Neil DeGrasse Tyson? Refudiate this madness.


Like you see the switch there? Harris' has horrific views on the substance of public policy, the "other side" there is "you're a dishonest fascist bigot gtfo". The other side isn't "libs love gays and Muslins, what a group of maroons lol lol lol".

Guys, it's okay, Harris is being totally philosophical with his bigotry.

I like that it's a "torture smear" before, later in the same sentence, it becomes just LOGICAL that sometimes you gotta torture some folks.

IN THE SAME SENTENCE

At least Harris himself like waits a paragraph, which apparently is enough to bamboozle the simpletons

Present company excluded of course. Not you. The dumbass behind you.

I think some movies are being set in the pre-cell era because they mess up the plots.

Are there any new movies with anything like a realistic portrayal of phones now? Like just about everyone has their phone in hand and looking at it every spare second?

For being some philosophical and intellectual juggernaut, Harris seems to miss the obvious asymmetry in the current geopolitical structure:

So, yes, the US and Israel take care to avoid non-combatants, but that isn't a moral consideration, it's a product of asymmetry. Israel and the US are more powerful and thus they have the luxury of being able to avoid civilian casualties while still accomplishing their goals. The US has obviously targeted civilians in the past--because it felt it needed to. And if ever the US or Israel feels that they are losing, they will resort to targeting civilians.

The suicide belt was invented by Hindus. Not because Hinduism is a violent faith incapable of redemption, but because the Tamil Tigers were losing in Sri Lanka. Mistaking material advantage for moral superiority is inexcusable for a so-called deep thinker.

Also if Muslims blew up a ****ing hospital, like we just did, nobody would remotely accept that **** was an "accident". WHOOPS, stuff happens, you know?

I don't even disagree with many of your counterpoints, it's just the way you dishonestly frame other peoples points in order to "win" the discussion. You end up winning a discussion nobody is having. You may be right about some or all of this topic, but I have no confidence listening to you when you argue like this. That's why I'm happy to see guys like Harris defend there own points in open debates with others. Then reasonable people can decide for themselves. So far you guys, and good ol Ben aren't doing well.

Why is pvn dragging up articles from 2013? All that stuff was done to death at the time.

I'll muster up a defence of Harris in a day or two. Suffice to say at the moment that I think he is dangerously wrong on torture, but I don't think that invalidates everything else he has to say, nor is his position on torture accurately characterised by his opponents. I think Harris is a good thinker with an unfortunate tendency to obsess over edge cases.

Greenwald is an annoying narcissist, John Lott style sock puppet user (Google it) and utterly disingenuous polemicist. Polemicists are supposed to be entertaining (see Hitchens, Christopher) rather than insufferably pedantic. He has nonetheless done a lot of good work fighting the surveillance state the US government is attempting to set up and is certainly a more important figure than Harris.

Don't call 13ball a dumbass!

Your periodic reminder that nuclear is the only plausible solution that can make a dent in our climate change problems:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ld-go-nuclear/

Pretty much this, although I don't think everything Harris has written on torture is defensible, but it's a lot closer to defensible than it is to Greenwald's caricature of it.

Thx. The public is way out of whack on their stance on nuclear, imo. I say this as someone who works in the environmental industry and has worked on a site where low-level radiological waste is buried. The public outrage is beyond irrational at times. Nuclearphobia.

What are the politics of nuclear power? Any recommended reading material?

Solar has a lot of promise as well, but nuclear has a part to play.

My state South Australia is currently reconsidering having a nuclear industry and accepting waste from elsewhere. There's a lot of public opposition to get over but I am in favour. Here is a schematic diagram of SA:



The LOL NOPE area is about 500 x 300 miles and is geologically stable desert.

nimby just about covers it, with some meltdown hysteria thrown in

For anyone interested, the main downside of nuclear is the cost involved - when you add up building and decommissioning the reactors, mining of fuel, disposal of waste etc etc, it can get pretty expensive.

I recommend reading about LFTR thorium reactors - they are safe, burn an abundant fuel, produce a small amount of waste, are proliferation-safe and can even burn existing waste. There are big technical challenges to getting them ready for prime time, but it could be done if there was a Manhattan Project style political will for it, which obviously there isn't.

We should have fusion soon and then all our problems will be solved. Until the rise of the machines.

That's because if a Muslim bombed a hospital the accidental part would be the bomb not going off.