I disagree with most of what Harris said in that video, but I do think some of his criticisms of Islam are valid, just like I agree with some (if not most) of his criticisms of Christianity.

But regardless, you're not really worth engaging in a serious discussion and the last sentence is a pretty good illustration why.

Bill took a pretty bad line on the Heffner stuff based entirely on his relationship with him. There was no critical thought there and it was very biased on his end.

Didn't he say something just a few episodes ago about how he isn't biased at all when he talks about **** like this.

You had already decided that and are just confirming your priors, I'm not trying to convert you.

Christianity is trivial to dunk on.

Islam is too (they all are), but Harris goes further with his statements that they are essentially a unique danger that cannot be reasoned with. The conclusions one is meant to draw from that are obvious.

Regarding my assertion of Harris as "scum". The mock quotes that I wrote are not inaccurate representations of the truth, listen to the podcast. As a concrete example, again, he states unequivocally on the Charles Murray episode that The Bell Curve is one of the most scientifically rock-solid works that has ever been published. This is proved trivially untrue just spending 3 minutes on Google, and Harris brings no legitimate critique into the conversation, allowing his [often] alt-right listeners to believe all of it as gospel.

The best motivation for this I can possibly attribute to Harris, for whom truth and science and logic are supposedly the highest aspirations, is that he's intentionally dropping his truth/science schtick and courting controversy for listeners. There are of course far worse potential motivations which I think are closer to the truth.

He's also, at minimum, a supporter of American imperialism. He is scum.

Bill Maher is also, at minimum, a supporter and apologist for American and Israeli imperialism, and also gives a platform to people like Maher, Peterson, Milo, etc. with no challenge (in fact explicitly agreeing with Milo when he makes anti-trans statements). He is also scum.

How would you conclude that Harris's audience is [often] alt-right? (Not sure why you put "often" in brackets.) Isn't the alt-right a fairly religious bloc? I don't think this makes up much, if any, of Harris's audience.

heh it's like there's no forum anywhere on the Internet that is immune to contamination by the mere existence of Sam Harris

I love the way he gets you snowflakes all spun up.

All you have to do to see that Harris fans aren’t anything resembling alt-right is to look at his subreddit which slants strongly left and is extremely critical of figures like Peterson, Shapiro, etc.

Baltimore’s post reads like somebody whose exposure to Sam consists of a couple Slate articles. Embarrassing stuff.

This.

Describing his fans as alt right is the only thing severely misguided here.

I'm sure there's a unique minority of his that is due to his views on Islam, but it's hardly representative. I think his audience is mostly liberals/atheists with a slightly more pragmatic lean than the bleeding heart liberal.

Without commenting on what % of SH's followers are alt-right... Baltimore Jones is correct about his overall criticisms of SH.

Now back to the alt-right derail. Here is exactly what was said about alt-right:

BJ says that alt-right is the obvious end point of some of SH's specific tactics and specific treatment of views on a specific topic. This is correct, and this is different than BJ calling SH alt-right.

This is a dishonest reply, classifying BJ's take as: Harris is alt-right.

This is the next instance of BJ using the phrase alt-right. In this scenario, BJ says that SH's [often] alt-right listeners are led to believe certain claims as gospel because SH doesn't meaningfully engage in the best challenges to those claims. What BJ said here is, once again, correct.

Some percentage of SH's viewers are alt-right. It may be a small %, probably isn't a large %. But, if you notice, BJ doesn't comment on how many of SH's viewers are alt-right other than to reference them as being influenced by his treatment of Charles Murray's claims and other than using the phrase [often]. I don't understand exactly what was meant by the [often] terminology, but it's clear that it does not mean to imply that, generically, most of SH's listeners are alt-right. I wouldn't be surprised if a larger than normal % of listeners are alt-right when SH has Charles Murray on, but that is pretty irrelevant.

I also am not sure what is meant by [often] and I have no idea what % of SH's listeners BJ thinks are alt-right. I think it is fair to ask for clarification as W0X0F did here, but am surprised that this is what is focused on rather than the main context of BJ's post, which is... correct.

On another note, alt-right people are generally driven by nationalism to a far greater extent than religion.

This, on the other hand, is absurd. People who correctly criticize Sam Harris are snowflakes. But Sam Harris himself, who is known for throwing huge tantrums at any sign of reasonable criticism and for literally blowing up and posting private e-mail communications* with anyone who disagrees with him, surely not a snowflake!

*that have backfired and made him look like a jackass roughly 100% of the time he has done it

The first paragraph can (probably is) true and still doesn't contradict anything BJ said.

The second paragraph is laughable and wrong.

Closer to a fair take.

I am also an atheist. I also am neither R or D. Yet I couldn't disagree more on your assertions about Harris. I see no evidence of bias against brown people.

Center-left Trudeau voting atheist here. Sam is god. Everything he says about race seems right. He is right about Islam. He is right about a potential nuclear first strike if a group like ISIS was about to get access to nukes. He is correct about Israel. Not sure on Iraq and Afghanistan.

He does have some alt-right fans. There’s a recent article on the SPLC website where they tracked a forum discussion on a white nationalist site about people that influenced them to the alt-right and Sam is on there. As many people labeled him an influence as they did Ben Shapiro and he’s pretty far down the list, but he’s on the list. The editorializing in the article could be better, but it’s interesting nonetheless. https://www.splcenter.org/20180419/m...ways-alt-right

Overall though I think most of his fans are left of center, non regressive types and then some across the spectrum including some alt-right. Also in terms of influencing people’s politics I think he can be proud because he’s an example of a prominent person who isn’t afraid to criticize the far left, while remaining firmly in the left and strongly opposed to Trump. There are too many weak and dumb people out there who would take a political compass test and come out a lefty, but because of their feelings about pc culture/Islam/free speech whatever they support Trump. Sam is an antidote to that thinking.

My best explanation for any of his fanbase being alt-right would be that once you do get red-pilled or whatever on Islam and realize that a lot of the mainstream left gives it a past for various regressive reasons you begin to start seeing similar connections to how they talk about Israel/Palestine and even things like police shootings of black men and can start seeking out more and more extreme content out there and kind of build a white victim narrative where the alt-right thrives. Idk this is what I gather about my own personal history and how it could have went down much much worse in a different alternative universe. 10 years ago I was typical atheism 1.0 where you just kind of hate religion generally and if anything Christianity more because it’s what was around you and you didn’t think religions really had better or worse ideas or prophets than each other. Sam was definitely partially responsible to me realizing that Islam is a bigger problem for the world than the rest of them and that most North Americans have their heads in the sands on that specific issue. But from my perspective Sam is just trying to tell what he think is the truth and I think that’s important even though there’s gonna be some people that a kernel of that truth and roll it into a big ball of bull****, especially when Sam isn’t afraid to come out strongly against that big ball of bull**** that it can turn into like he does when he talks about his opposition to white identity politics.

ASPoker doesn’t know what [often] alt right means, except that it clearly doesn’t mean that it implies his followers lean alt-right, even though in an earlier post Baltimore said he is the same as Jordan Peterson and that alt-right is the ‘obvious end point’ of listening to Harris. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive because I’ve been a fan of Sam for years and am the furthest thing from alt-right. I have my faults with Sam and his overly aggressive criticisms of Islam is near the top. Between his books and his podcast, that represents a pretty small percentage of his work, and this race / IQ stuff only came up recently which I have mostly glossed over.

To sum up, I think Sam’s takes on Islam and the recent stuff with Klein is not a good look for him. I still don’t think he is anything close to a bigot and I reject the insinuation he made on several occasions that he has a significant alt-right fanbase. It’s a tiny minority that has seemingly no influence among his followers.

On mobile or I would go in further detail but I think that gets the point across.

I'd argue that Sam has influenced you to be *less* informed/correct re: your views on Islam, but I don't think it would be a meaningful exercise and I don't think you'd be receptive to it.

^^^ Here is where we can agree.

With that said, I'll also offer that I do find a lot of value in some of SH's work and ideas.

Fast forwarded through killa Mike. It is bothersome when journalists and authors segments get tainted by somebody from the "Boomer and the Nudge" podcast or some rapper.

somehow i made it until yesterday without knowing who ben shapiro is. i now wish i could go back to that time.

Yeah, he's a true deplorable. It's no surprise they didn't bring him out for Overtime. The entire segment would have been spent on some of the panel members telling him what an ******* he is.

Bill did... fine in the interview with him, but he honestly gives way too much respect to these pieces of **** just for coming onto his show. You aren't a scary guy, Bill, and these ****ers get to spread their message to an audience of millions by showing up, dodging your questions, and spouting off their talking points over 8 minutes. It isn't some brave ****ing thing they are doing.

I thought Bill definitely kicked Shapiro's ass there, and he was better than he usually is with his conservative guests.

When Shapiro said he'd vote for Trump this time because "the damage is already done to the social fabric", my head almost exploded. Wish Bill would have pressed him on that idiocy.

I give props to Bill for at least having conservatives on his show. He doesn't have to say much they usually make themselves look bad on their own.

Count me among those who think we need conservative voices on the show. How can we show them they're wrong, if we don't talk to them?

(Before I get called a smug liberal, let me clarify: While I believe many of their opinions are wrong, I'm talking about the FACTS they have wrong. I can respect their opinions. Recently, a politician told a voter, "I never said I'm for open borders," and his constituent replied, "But Fox News says you did." They'll have an easier time seeing our side of things, once we dispense with misinformation and agree on the facts.)

Hes an orthodox jew. He couldnt go on overtime because of Shabbat. Late June may be the only time of the year he could even go on Real Time.

Im not sure you understand him with the social fabric stuff. He opposed Trump in the election because he didnt want Conservatism to become Trumpism and thought it was bad long term for the conservative movement. That kind of damage is already mostly done. Thats what hes talking about. Trumps not gonna run again after 2024 no matter what so at that point hes much more concerned with policy where Bens gonna line up closer with Trump than the Dem nom, like it did with Hillary. How should Bill have pressed him on this?

Also the shows definitely better with conservatives(and not just the Navarro and Schmidt ones who may as well be partisan Democrats on the show). And when it comes to conservatives Shapiro is about as good as it gets for this format. He does a good job at calling balls and strikes from his principles, and hes well spoken and quick witted.

Do you believe that a conservative who is told his facts are wrong is actually going to listen and change his mind rather than digging in?

He said "a lot of the damage that he has done to the country, in terms of the social fabric, has already occurred". He went on to say "since the damage has already occurred, I'm not mitigating against the damage by not voting for him in 2020".

That is a moronic statement for too many reasons to count. The idea that all the damage Trump can do, is baked in after 18 months, is ludicrous. What about after 6 months? 3 months? Was it baked in then? I'm not sure if you or Ben has noticed, but there's a new outrage via twitter or rally podium or policy from the president every day. The idea that an impulsive, petty, juvenile, corrupt, hateful leader can't make things worse over time, is laughable.

It sounds like you are a fan of Ben and trying to defend him. I've heard his show many times and find him smart and often entertaining even though I disagree with him. But he did NOT come off well in this, I'm sorry. He came across like a guy doing moral calisthenics (to steal Bradley Whitford's line) trying to explain why he'll freely vote for a truly despicable human being, as long as he gets his tax cuts and a supreme court judge he likes.

I think the dude is boring and full of ego that makes him blind. No spun up, no spun down, just dissapointment from someone who is supposed to be intellectual but is really just stuck in the same stuff that atheists at large are stuck on. Nothing really different about him at all, he's mediocre at best but a good orator even tho he's boring.



My take on Harris: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, he's still talking? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ



He's been on the JRE several times and I've seen them all and what he talks about I don't know cuz he's just a mimic of so many that are just like him. He dresses well tho, so he's got that!

Great question.

I've typed up three different answers, and deleted them all, as they are too long-winded and politard for an OOTV thread. Cliff Notes:

We gotta try. When I talk to a conservative, I can usually make a tiny, tiny dent in his stance. Time and erosion can turn those tiny dents into something bigger, I hope.

But can a conservative make a tiny tiny dent in your stance?

Bill said to Ben, "let's keep talking". Seems like a good idea and better than where we're at now... but this assumes that both sides can be willing to accept that the other might occasionally be right.