#58 - The Putin Question

In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Garry Kasparov about the problem of waning American power, the rise of Putin, the coming presidency of Donald Trump, computer chess, the future of artificial intelligence, and other topics.

Coming back to this episode months later, I don't remember anything about Trump, computer chess, AI, or other topics. The only thing I remember can be summed up in my handy-dandy little meme I just generated instead of working:

Review of Making Sense #157: What Does the Mueller Report Really Say? With Benjamin Wittes

Oh, boy! This was a juicy one. Starting with good disclaimers about how Benjamin is not a lawyer but a legal reporter, and also that he despises Trump and wants him out of office. So if you take him at his word, you won't view the rest of the interview as yet another Trump lackey running a screen for him. And really, unless you're blinded by your own political bents, you will find yourself unable to disagree with pretty much everything Benjamin says.

He makes clear that in Volume 1 of the report, Mueller found no criminal activity on Trump’s part prior to the 2016 election:

• Gross incompetence kept him from accomplishing the conspiracy he intended 
• So did a halo of interceding aides 
• Merely applauding and being the beneficiary of Russian hacking does not mean Trump conspired.

So, though there are terrible lapses of judgment recorded, there's nothing criminal there.

Volume 2 is a different story, though. That one is about the Trump response to the investigation. Benjamin notes that Mueller was legally not allowed to say that anything indicted Trump, only whether he is exonerated or not. But he says there are three clearly criminal and impeachable classes of offenses outlined in Volume 2:

• Criminal offense #1: serial abusive attempts to influence the investigation by firings etc.
• Criminal offense #2: serial attempts to abuse his power and launch FBI attacks on Hillary Clinton and other political enemies 
• Criminal offense #3: commanding and encouraging witnesses to not cooperate with the investigation.

Benjamin ends by recognizing the danger of proceeding with impeachment proceedings, which may only energize Trump's base for a 2020 election. And he very rightly counters that with the danger of turning a blind eye to such criminal and reprehensible behavior.

Sam does a good job of staying out of the way and only asking intelligent and appropriate questions. At the end, he asks the question which is on my mind a lot these days: "what do you say to the die-hard partisan Trump supporter who keeps insisting that there is no 'there' there?" 

Benjamin's answer is one we've probably all heard before: "Tell them to substitute 'Biden' or 'Hillary' (or whatever) in the report everywhere you see Trump's name, and see if you can't understand how terrifying this is to people on the other side who are concerned about the fate of our democracy.'

Sound advice. But I bet many committed Trump supporters would be willing to ride a nuke into--well, not Moscow, anymore, but how about San Francisco?--if Trump told them to. So I don't think they'd give a fig about the fate of our country's democracy.

Making Sense #154: What does Sam Harris really want?

#154 What do Jihadists Really Want

This is one of the topics that most appeals to the whacko right-of-center segment of Sam's base. But it's important not to judge the strength of an argument by the whackos it attracts.

My primary objection to the overall content of this particular podcast is that Sam's bias seems to be preventing him from seeing clearly the traps he so nimbly detects in his opponents' views. Anyone who has listened to him learns very quickly that he hates it—HATES IT—when people try to second guess what he says.

And indeed one of the very first things Sam tells us is that we should believe what people say about themselves and stop trying to second-guess their motives. Jihadists want to kill all of us infidels because the Koran tells them to. Choosing not to believe them would be as foolish as choosing not to believe a medical student who tells us that he's studying to be a doctor because he wants to help people.

Oh—except that Sam allows that the medical student may also be in it for the money. Or the prestige. Or scientific curiosity.

But getting back to jihadists—they all want to kill us because their religion is inferior. Sure, he says, there may be some "local" jihadists who are only beheading US Marines because their leaders told them to. But that's beside the point for Sam. And he even says it would be crazy to think that there aren't some Muslims who want to kill us because of the horrors of colonialism. But don't let that distract you.They really want to kill us because they hate our freedoms. George W was right!

If you don't agree with Sam, you are a "Muslim apologist." Or even worse, you are a self-described "woke" liberal, meaning your weak mind has been befuddled by—what? I don't know, too much empathy, perhaps.

Now, I love laughing at foolishness as much as the next self-righteous science nerd. I love skewering the befuddled, mocking the wrong-headed, and kicking the bottom tiles of the Jenga stack that is the average American mind. I love it almost as much as Sam does.

Which is why I'm going to hoist you by your own petard, Sam. Let's take a swipe at your Jenga stack, for you seem to be blind to the fallacies of your own argument:

1    1)      You acknowledge that your own example of medical students may have multiple and complex reasons for choosing their path

2    2)      you acknowledge that it would be absurd to ignore the effects of colonialism, and then do so

3    3)      you acknowledge that the power of cult leadership may also play a role

4    4)      It requires a disturbing level of intellectual hubris to think you're smarter than everyone else and that you're the only one who sees this clearly.

Sam's premise is that jihadists exist mostly because Islam is a religion with "more than its share of bad ideas." But it is entirely possible that he's wrong. That the whackos in the Muslim community who think infidels should be killed may not speak for a significant portion of the "Muslim community." If that is even a thing.  

Were I to (gasp) try to second-guess Sam's motivations, I'd say it's pretty clear that he planted a big, fat, flamboyant flag in the whole end-of-faith, four-horsemen camp, and that's why he is blind to the above problems.

Let me repeat that I mostly agree with Sam. In fact I think he's the closest thing I've ever heard to The Voice Of Reason. Indeed, I don't dispute that Islam has more than its share of bad ideas. Further, I buy into Sam's notion that Episcopalians, Jews, etc. have benefited from several hundred extra years of civilizing effects and are now more likely than Muslims to frown on beheading infidels.

But I also note that Zionists were the first modern terrorists when they were being globally persecuted and in search of a safe place, in the early to mid 1900s. Nobody who has half a brain would now say that proves their religion is uncivilized or murderous. They would instead correctly acknowledge the dramatic and pernicious effect of global persecution on a population.

And I think Sam needs to do the same for Muslims. Even if it alienates the whackos in his base.