Bob let me pick on you for a second (no not actually but this post stuck in my mind as a prime example).
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperUberBob
Big news: Travel ban upheld
Main topic of discussion itt: Sam Harris
Hell, we had a bunch of discussion on this guy before that ended up going in this direction (though I think it was a LC thread).
I might be in the minority but attacking Clovis for liking Sam is less important than America banning millions of people who did nothing wrong other than being born in a country Trump doesn't like.
Bet if Trump had a photo with a bunch of Iranians with their hands on a sphere, they probably wouldn't be in the travel ban.
This always seems to happen, where people overlook the microcosm of the issue at hand. The two main criticisms of Harris, aside from the Murray debacle (jfc), are his views on Islam and his views on civility. His Muslim travel ban takes play out like that twitter meme:
me: Sam what do you think about the ban?
Sam: I think it is wrong on a number of levels.
me OK that's goo-
Sam: BUT...
I don't play that game of shifting blame to a distant 2nd cause (like, the 'why trump won' list will always have his voters as the clear #1 spot) but if we are talking about the big picture then people like Harris and their insidious views enter the conversation early, because there's a slew of liberals and other assorted types who pretty much stop a hair short of advocating a travel ban. To Harris' credit he's always spoken with compassion and empathy about refugees, and in terms of the travel ban that's huge, but, with that dreaded "BUT..." always lurking behind his contributions, even if they're inadvertent, are totally topical.
Essentially, this,
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperUberBob
Big news: Travel ban upheld
Main topic of discussion itt: Sam Harris
...
is an apt and logical continuation.
The same applies even more to the oh-muh-civility topic which aofrantic nicely lays out:
Quote:
Originally Posted by aoFrantic
Remember this all started from Clovis saying that we can only win over Trump voters, morons and edgelords from facts and debate, and he's shown that podcasts and debate have...had race scientists on to not talk about race science at all? Your dude, that you hold up as a shining example had someone known only for race science and didn't even challenge him on it! Your whole thing this week has been challenging people with ****ing awful views into evolving by showing them facts and reason and all that bull****, but your heroes with 1000x more clout than you'll ever have don't even do this and don't pretend that West Wing bull**** works.
To put a fine point on it, Fly yelling at Clovis about Sam Harris and "derailing" the other thread
is what actually talking about the big issues looks like in any sort of practical, non-angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin setting. The one thing the election should've taught people is the mistake of treating all this like a removed abstraction and not the culmination of a zillion little events and interactions.