Sam Harris Vs. Scott Adams

[Dand]

Thanks for sharing, this is a good interview.

It really cements Harris as a Democrat hack. He goes on about how Trump is a despicable womanizer and is somehow much worse than Bill Clinton, who actually used his position in an extremely unethical way. Harris says Trump University is more corrupt than anything other politicians have been involved in. Has he never paid attention to even run-of-the-mill lobbying? And to top it off he uses the word "treason" repeatedly in relation to Trump and Russia. Harris says Trump is almost a "treasonous fanboy of Putin". If he is such an enlightened fedora intellectual then why doesn't he know we're not at war with Russia? He's a hack or completely in his MSM echo chamber.

edit: he even regurgitates the "Russia hacked the election" and "17 intelligence agencies agree". This guy is in a Dan Carlin-level MSM bubble.

[Martin Hash]

Harris must have an excellent publicist. I've tried several times to listen to his podcast: drivel. Dan Carlin smashed him during their interview, and Scott Adams showed him to be completely clueless. I wouldn't hold back on the guy, I'd hurt his feelings.

[TheReal_ND]

I tried trolling his forum once and gave up. I feel like an abysmal failure about it tbh.

*i think I can troll I think I can troll*

[heydaralon]

If you go onto youtube and search for Scott Adams' periscope videos, they are totally worthwhile. The guy has a good mind, and is very down to Earth. The Sam Harris podcast was also very quality. I rarely listen to things that long, and I listened to the whole thing.

[Hastur]

I'm giving her up on Sam Harris now. He doesn't add anything to the conversation. He's a sophist high on the MSM narrative. A useful idiot. To think he once was considered edgy and compared to Hitchens and Dawkins...

His first podcast with Jordan Peterson was a disaster. The second one was slightly better but Sam still came out as the clearly lesser of the two.

[GloryofGreece]

It seemed a lot like Harris trying to figure out way people are irrational and usually emotional etc. And that "persuasion" is all that matters. (which it obviously doesn't) just like everything for everyone and every culture doesn't simply boil down to economics or money. Scott did some of the things he criticizes others for and he hate's using analogies or metaphors. O Ok. Its sounds more of way to just dismiss others opinions and not have to really address the past in any meaningful way either. There next talk will be more productive and hopefully more simply about persuasion in general and maybe why "facts" don't matter to most people.

[JohnDonne]

I have to hand it to Adams, he is the modern day Machiavelli.

Adams says that facts don't matter for persuasion. He then attempts to persuade us of this concept using ostensible facts. "Trump won the election, because he knows how to persuade people." (I see what he did there.)

From there we learn that the fact that Trump was clever enough to win the presidency qualifies him to be president, and also means he's the best man for the job. (Just as has always been the case in all of history.)

Adams explains the concept of confirmation bias, he says it's inescapable. Adams then retroactively explains all the mystifying actions of Trump using his "persuasion filter." Oh that? It's just a filter that confirms everything Trump does is a result of persuasion. Adams happens to be an expert on Trump and persuasion, so when he sees Trump using persuasion (which is always) he can tell.

Adams has the uncanny ability to see the obliquely positive things that come about because of Trump's actions and ascribe them to Trump's overall intent. Also, Adams says ascribing intentions to other people is a sign of cognitive dissonance, also inescapable.

Trump is a master persuader as evidenced by this: To half the country, he looks exactly like a con man supported by a bunch of dupes. To his supporters it looks like everyone else is being conned except them. His supporters aren't quite sure what's supposed to happen next, or whether or not Trump is telling the truth about this or that, but they're sure that whatever Trump does it's definitely good for them and that they are in on the con...And the next part of the story is the country was healthy and prosperous ever after.

The post-modern Machiavelli has found his Cesare Borgia "Prince." Truly an intellectual hero worthy of our time!

[heydaralon]

I have to hand it to Adams, he is the modern day Machiavelli.

Adams says that facts don't matter for persuasion. He then attempts to persuade us of this concept using ostensible facts. "Trump won the election, because he knows how to persuade people." (I see what he did there.)

From there we learn that the fact that Trump was clever enough to win the presidency qualifies him to be president, and also means he's the best man for the job. (Just as has always been the case in all of history.)

Adams explains the concept of confirmation bias, he says it's inescapable. Adams then retroactively explains all the mystifying actions of Trump using his "persuasion filter." Oh that? It's just a filter that confirms everything Trump does is a result of persuasion. Adams happens to be an expert on Trump and persuasion, so when he sees Trump using persuasion (which is always) he can tell.

Adams has the uncanny ability to see the obliquely positive things that come about because of Trump's actions and ascribe them to Trump's overall intent. Also, Adams says ascribing intentions to other people is a sign of cognitive dissonance, also inescapable.

Trump is a master persuader as evidenced by this: To half the country, he looks exactly like a con man supported by a bunch of dupes. To his supporters it looks like everyone else is being conned except them. His supporters aren't quite sure what's supposed to happen next, or whether or not Trump is telling the truth about this or that, but they're sure that whatever Trump does it's definitely good for them and that they are in on the con...And the next part of the story is the country was healthy and prosperous ever after.

The post-modern Machiavelli has found his Cesare Borgia "Prince." Truly an intellectual hero worthy of our time!

I don't know if you are right or wrong on this, but that was one hell of a read!

[Speaker to Animals]

As a general rule, anybody who calls themselves a new atheist is likely a terrible debater. The theologian William Bentley Hart really proved the point in his book Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies.

We are kind of in a dark age for atheism even though the media would have you believe otherwise. Most of the philosophers today are theists. The media will play up their new atheist science actors nonstop, but in the academy, it's the other way around. Worse, the arguments of the new atheists are so terrible, you really have to be a true believer not want to ignore them outright in favor of the classic philosophers like Nietzsche and Sartre.

New atheism is more of a cheap imitation and a confidence racket where hucksters capitalize on the inferiority complex of Americans. If you want to be an atheist, you really should go back a few generations and read the classics. Those guys were devastating.

[JohnDonne]

I have to hand it to Adams, he is the modern day Machiavelli.

Adams says that facts don't matter for persuasion. He then attempts to persuade us of this concept using ostensible facts. "Trump won the election, because he knows how to persuade people." (I see what he did there.)

From there we learn that the fact that Trump was clever enough to win the presidency qualifies him to be president, and also means he's the best man for the job. (Just as has always been the case in all of history.)

Adams explains the concept of confirmation bias, he says it's inescapable. Adams then retroactively explains all the mystifying actions of Trump using his "persuasion filter." Oh that? It's just a filter that confirms everything Trump does is a result of persuasion. Adams happens to be an expert on Trump and persuasion, so when he sees Trump using persuasion (which is always) he can tell.

Adams has the uncanny ability to see the obliquely positive things that come about because of Trump's actions and ascribe them to Trump's overall intent. Also, Adams says ascribing intentions to other people is a sign of cognitive dissonance, also inescapable.

Trump is a master persuader as evidenced by this: To half the country, he looks exactly like a con man supported by a bunch of dupes. To his supporters it looks like everyone else is being conned except them. His supporters aren't quite sure what's supposed to happen next, or whether or not Trump is telling the truth about this or that, but they're sure that whatever Trump does it's definitely good for them and that they are in on the con...And the next part of the story is the country was healthy and prosperous ever after.

The post-modern Machiavelli has found his Cesare Borgia "Prince." Truly an intellectual hero worthy of our time!

I don't know if you are right or wrong on this, but that was one hell of a read!

Why thank you.

I realize I forgot to mention Adams' classic use of the false dichotomy: "Hitler filter or Persuasion filter? Let's compare them." Given only those two options any reasonable person would lean towards persuasion. The trick being that there's many positions that don't fit into either of those extremes, and the ironic part is Hitler himself was an excellent persuader.