#144 Conquering Hate, with Deeyah Khan

This is precisely the kind of conversation that I admire Sam Harris most for undertaking. Not because he's so clever and so right. Actually the opposite. As with podcast #123, with Ezra Klein, Sam is confronted in this podcast with a person eloquently pointing out a shortcoming in his thinking. Unfortunately, as with the Ezra Klein podcast, Sam's blind spot stands out rather obviously, and he seems to be unable to get what she's saying, which I think is this: It's unfortunate that Sam spends so much of his time tearing down the "bad ideas" of Islam that lead to jihadism and being so obstinately and completely in denial that there were any geopolitical motives in someone like Bin Laden or any other privileged Islamist. She urges him not to flatten the narrative down to "Islam bad, secularism good" when she has found from personal meetings with these people that it's never that black and white, that it is always "all about complexity."

But this message can't go over so easily for a man who has made his name with books like "The End of Faith" or "Islam and the Future of Tolerance." Those books focused on the shortcomings of Islam. They not only ignore, but actually disparage, any arguments about Western imperialism. Khan is in square opposition to his simplistic view, but she can't seem to crack through Sam's multi-decades-long veneer of religious approbation.

Another fascinating idea that Khan brings up which Sam is lamentably unable to grok is her observation that these hate movements, be they Jihadist or White Supremist, seem to her to be carried out by foot soldiers culled from the ranks of the most vulnerable, the most impressionable, the most likely to fall under the sway of a charismatic leader willing to invest the time and effort into cultivating them. Showered with attention, magnified by the media and by their cause, these angry young men are brought from anonymity and inconsequentialism to notoriety and preeminence by their movement. Their leaders, their particular "Fight Club," may be motivated by a more pure idea of hatred or dogma, but these suicide bombers and KKK lackeys are lured into a movement on weaker pretexts, and Khan finds she is able to dismantle and penetrate them, not by correcting the false dogma, but by her own countering charisma. But Sam seems to only half-get this.

And frankly, Sam should take a more clear-headed view of his own stance here, as he clearly wants it both ways. He claims that it isn't fair to call him an "islamophobe" because of his Muslim friends, because by taking a stand against jihadists he is defending more vulnerable Muslims who are women, or gay, or even just more secular, than any leftist antifa warrior. And yet he is also on record as an avowed atheist who calls the Koran the worst book imaginable for getting the moral landscape wrong. Or consider this quote pulled off the web in less than thirty seconds by googling Sam Harris and Koran: "The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you." How can someone post that on his website, and then say he isn't an islamophobe!

In the interests of full disclosure, I would acknowledge that I am an islamophobe also. For that matter I'm a christiophobe and a hindophobe and any other brand of bigot you want to call me. Yes, even the word bigot I won't object to, in its original religious-only meaning (derived from the way the French mocked the imperiously pious British with their constant utterances of "by God").

Why admit this? Because I believe anyone--like Sam--who thinks that religions are delusional, misguided, and poisonously pedogogical vestiges of a less evolved mindset, ought to come clean and at least own his bigotry.

#141 Is #Metoo Going Too Far? (with Rebecca Traister)

Here are my takeaways on this interview with Rebecca Traister.

To start with, as a curmudgeonly middle-aged white male, I found the experience fascinating to listen to this extremely articulate woman explain so much that is outside of my experience male. 

Ok, here are the points she made that I found most noteworthy:

Bill Cosby might have been cut some slack in the early years of his accusations because he was known for defending the white status quo against black activists. 

That Bill Clinton was given a pass is seen as a mistake that feminists paid for later because it undermined their claims to being unaligned politically. 

Matt Damon was slapped down appropriately for mansplaining how to respond to sexual aggression. He didn’t lose his job, in fact he appeared shortly afterward to public acclaim, and so the punishment fit the crime.

Charlie Rose was fired appropriately. His life didn’t end, he wasnot sent to jail, also appropriately

The flattening and mindless approbation of the perpetrators of sexual abuse is happening, not by the accusers, but by the accused. 

Her point is not that power can’t harm and powerful people or doesn’t harm them, which is what the less awake people on Reddit seem to think, her point is instead that when disenfranchised people exert their influence or power, it is considered violence, but that when powerful people exert their influence and power, it doesn’t even register.

The thing I appreciate best about this is her point that powerful people on the left do in fact survive their excoriation by angry feminist when they strike the wrong note, and that Matt Damon warning of a flattened  response to sexual harassment to women resulted only in people being mean to him on Twitter. But then ironically this is flattened into the tale that he has been walked to the guillotine. 

To his last point that the excesses of the mob are driving doubters to trump, she points out that not all objections are punitive, many are correcting. And that going too gently is why the previous waves of feminism ultimately failed. And that this is a difficult conversation, that even she has trouble with it sometimes. 

Review of Waking Up #129: AN INSIDER'S VIEW OF MEDICINE

Program Notes: "In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Dr. Nina Shapiro about the practice of medicine. They discuss the unique resiliency of children, the importance of second opinions, bad doctors, how medical training has changed in recent years, medical uncertainty, risk perception, vaccine safety, and other topics."

I don't actually find the first 2/3 of this podcast very informative. I'd pretty much sum it up by saying: you're not doing yourself any favors by trying to tell the hospital staff how to do their job or who to assign to your case.

The last third or so, where Dr. Shapiro addresses some myths and misconceptions, was a bit more interesting, and it would probably be a really good idea to buy her book, "Hype," where she tells the reader things like, gluten is a protein, not a carb, and not helpful to avoid, or the whole concept of "de-toxing" is nonsense, or anti-oxidants do not actually prevent most cancers, etc. 

(Regardless of her opinions about GMOs, I'd probably be inclined to cling to my unscientific prejudice against them, but that's more because I don't believe there's any unbiased scientists actually working on the question, than because I think science isn't capable of addressing the question.)

Review of Waking Up #126: IN DEFENSE OF HONOR

Official Notes: 

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast Sam Harris speaks with Tamler Sommers about cultures of honor. They discuss the difference between honor and dignity, “justice porn,” honor killings, honor and interpersonal violence, prison and gang culture, collective responsibility and collective punishment, retributive vs restorative justice, the ethics of forgiveness and redemption, #metoo, and other topics.

Not one the more interesting podcast episodes. In fact it boggles the mind that Sommers wanted to write a whole book about this; nobody likes to be lectured about honor or morality. And even less do I want to be asked to think about the history or sociology of it. It boggles the mind even further that he found a publisher, although maybe he's in with enough ethics professors around the country that he can guarantee a certain number of sales. 

It did make me want to look up “Justice Porn” on Reddit, though. Also, the idea of restorative justice is pretty cool and one can imagine many ways it would improve the country if it could start to be implemented more, for those specific crimes where it is appropriate.

Otherwise, not the best use of the listener's time. I recommend a "2X" setting for play speed. 

Review of Waking Up: #125. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY

Official Notes: 

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks to Bart Ehrman about his experience of being a born-again Christian, his academic training in New Testament scholarship, his loss of faith, the most convincing argument in defense of Christianity, the status of miracles, the composition of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus, the nature of heaven and hell, the book of Revelation, the End Times, self-contradictions in the Bible, the concept of a messiah, whether Jesus actually existed, Christianity as a cult of human sacrifice, the conversion of Constantine, and other topics.

This is a deeper look into biblical scholarship of the 400 years AD. No hell; heaven is just Earth with “slightly tweaked “ laws of physics; the difference between early Christians and other Jews is that Jews didn’t believe that a messiah would be crucified.

It was fascinating to learn that that Ehrman lost his faith when, in bible college, he was told that contradictions between texts in the Bible might merely mean that one of the texts is wrong. Shouldn't have let the camel's nose in THAT tent!

Another fun fact is that early Christians and Jews believed in a multiplicity of gods, so Yahweh was just the number 1 god, not the only one.

Review of Waking Up #124: IN SEARCH OF REALITY

Official Notes:

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Sean Carroll about our understanding of reality. They discuss consciousness, the many worlds view of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, free will, facts and values, and other topics.

Housekeeping:

“I had an argument for most of what I was saying, and Klein did not.“, Sam maintains his blind spot and does not understand that Klein’s central argument is that the data is too fuzzy and too charged to draw conclusions from.

Is versus Ought. Sam takes a line reminiscent of the Jordan Peterson position that what is true includes what ought to be true, specifically not maximizing suffering for all humans.

Free will: they reach an understanding that there are two levels you can look at human behavior on: the microscopic level, where there is no free will, and the macro level, where we believe that we have free will because nobody yet is capable of predicting our responses.

Carroll points out that in 500 years the big tragedy will be that nobody figured out what quantum mechanics means, although he is 100% convinced that quantum mechanics is right.

Also Carroll seems to think that an infinite number of infinities, the multi-universe theory, is less complicated then something like an extra, undetected, variable.

Review of Waking Up #120: WHAT IS AND WHAT MATTERS

Official Notes:

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Rebecca Goldstein and Max Tegmark about the foundations of human knowledge and morality.

Another one in front of a live audience. At the Q &A after someone even asked about the live audience thing and SH affirmed that it has the advantage of bringing an audience into the conversation. He also said it might be weird for podcast listeners since some laughs won’t seem justified. They don’t address my principal complaints that a live podcast tends to pander just a little more. But actually, the pandering was less of an issue in this one. This actually felt more like a genuine conversation and less like an attempt to squeeze in as many one-liners as possible.

The main focus was on how science can answer the question of what is matter but not the question of what matters. Topics covered: counterfactuals, modal realism (everything that can exist, does) multi universes. Refinement of free will explanation by Sam.

Science= what is

Philosophy =what matters.

Sam claims that even if you think you don’t care about philosophy, only science, you still have to decide what science you like and that means some elements of philosophy gets involved. Not sure I buy this.

I also dispute their agreement that that that human brain cognitively developed to be able to understand parabolic arcs, but not quantum mechanics. 

Having studied quantum mechanics, I think the human brain is more of a blank slate than that. It may be true that we understand parabolic arcs better than a lot of other mathematical forms because of our brain structure, but I think that's something that develops as we mature through childhood.

It’s maybe also true that quantum mechanics doesn’t make sense to the human brain because it's a nonsensical theory.