Video of Chicago police murder. Media reaction. Black protests. Sam Harris and nuclear weapons. Middle East. Trump and Jeb Bush reactions. Cenk hosting. Video of the Chicago police officer murder in 2014 of 17 year old Laquan McDonald was released yesterday. The original police story was that McDonald lunged at the cops that shot him 16 times. Video of the reality of the murder. Officer Van Dyke has had 18 previous incident complaints filed against him, and he was never disciplined. Even after this killing from 1 year ago, he wasn’t charged, as he was put on paid desk duty. Video of Van Dyke’s attorney telling CNN that the video shows he was justified in murdering the victim because video is only 2 dimensional. Cenk details the story of a former cop that had countless complaints against him that later admitted his actions were known by the department and was encouraged. After the Chicago killing was released, Bill O’Reilly blamed Black people. Video of O’Reilly’s panel pointing out 2 instances of Black on White crime, claiming the real problem in America is Black people. Bill O’Reilly counseled Donald Trump for his racist retweet, telling him to stop showing his racism show boldy. Videos of O’Reilly and Trump discussing how to spread racism without being so easily called out by “Liberals and the Democrats.” After 5 Black protesters were shot in Minneapolis over another police murder, video has emerged of a couple of 4Chan users that were bragging about heading into Minneapolis to start trouble with the protesters. Video of the racist-filled car ride.
Cenk discusses Sam Harris’ opinion about utilizing nuclear weapons to rid the world of terrorism. Harris wrote that if our enemies get their hands on nuclear weapons, we may have to conduct a nuclear 1st strike, even though it would be an unthinkable crime on humanity. Cenk compares this wording with the way Donald Trump endorses a horrible plan while distancing himself from it at the same time. Jeb Bush’s call for a religious test for refugees to enter the country has finally forced him to answer how. Video of Bush’s original thoughts of prioritizing Christians over Muslims with no real answer of how. Jeb’s latest answer is to check their last names and birth certificates to determine if they’re Christian. Cenk talks about an assessment from two articles that show how the Middle East used to be much more secular, and how it came to be so fundamentalist.
Comments
ronneyrulez defended burqas. That disqualifies him from the adult table, yes?
I applaud the efforts of Cenk and everyone commenting here to expose the bigotry revealed by Sam Harris’s thought experiments. Since his precise views on the topics in question have never been expressly elicited from him due to his lack of public appearances in the 10+ years since The End of Faith came out, the inferences drawn here really constitute the best evidence of what his position is on the real world use of nuclear weapons. Good journalism isn’t about gathering as many facts as reasonably possible and drawing logical conclusions, it’s about finding that sound bite that best proves your point. Even though he doesn’t say he would choose to do the nuclear first strike, why would you pose the question unless you wanted to answer “Yes”?
With one form of bigotry clearly established, I think it is time we see just how bigoted Sam Harris is. With the formula “potential victims in a thought experiment = hated class of people” clearly established, we just need to find some other thought experiments Sam Harris likes or uses.
One classic thought experiment Sam Harris has recounted on some number of occasions is one where there are two scenarios:
Scenario 1 – A train is going down a track toward five people who will be killed if it is not stopped or diverted. You can throw a switch that will divert the train onto another track where it will kill one person.
Scenario 2 – A train is going down a track toward five people who will be killed if it is not stopped or diverted. You are standing on a bridge over the tracks with a very overweight individual who is sufficiently large to stop the train before it kills the five people if pushed onto the track.
Sam Harris claims that he recounts this thought experiment because it helps reveal things about people’s thought processes and moral intuitions, but I think we all know better. The real reason: SAM HARRIS HATES FAT PEOPLE (AND/OR RAIL WORKERS AND TRANSIENTS).
The clear evidence against the validity of this as a thought experiment is even greater than the nuclear first strike thought experiment:
1. The scenario is completely implausible – there are doubtlessly scores of other ways we could prevent the train from striking the five people, the fat person probably wouldn’t stop the train, etc.
2. I think we should just reject the premise that we have only two choices because I don’t like those two choices as they make me uncomfortable. Any thought experiment where you or I don’t like the stated premise is inherently invalid and clearly says something about the person recounting it.
3. Sam Harris would not have recounted this thought experiment on numerous occasions if he didn’t really want to push fat people off of bridges, otherwise why ask the question? The idea that he would do this just to get his audience to reflect on a moral dilemma doesn’t fit with how I view Sam Harris, so clearly he is advocating for pushing fat people off of bridges.
WE CAUGHT YOU AGAIN SAM HARRIS!!!
A The answer to the question is the disagreement, not the question itself
B If there is an organized movement against fat people, that has INSTITUTIONAL support (presidential candidates, editorials in the media, mobs on the street, cops making excuses or even participating in the hate etc.), we can talk again about the “danger” of the thought experiment IN THAT SITUATION…
It’s become so toxic to talk about ideas because of all the irrational Harris hate Cenk has been fueling to his fanatic audience. I have been a paying member since 2009 so stop with the Sam Harris fanboy bullshit. I never fucking heard of Sam Harris until Cenk had plagiarist CJ Werlemen on TYT.
To all the regressive leftists such as ronny or gathly, have you ever in your life used the words “Christianophobia” or “Buddhistophobia?”
I never have, no. I wasn’t alive during Nero’s reign as emperor of Rome from 54 to 68 AD, but I’ve read that his persecutions of Christians were pretty brutal considering the tools available to him at the time. I didn’t live through 9th century China, but I’ve read that Emperor Wuzong was ruthless in his oppression of Buddhists. I would use those terms in those times. This is what matters. If you personally just wanted to sit in your swamp of hatred and hate on Islam all day, I wouldn’t care. It’s that you’re participating in a movement of fear and hate that is tied to a larger force. Racism has to be structural. It has to have power behind it. It’s not about who you hate personally.
The US is a very religious nation. It’s off the charts for an advanced, industrial nation. The vast majority of those people who are religious are some form of Christian. People in positions of power are some form of Christian. Therefore, when you take a country of ignorant people and scare them about some “other”, it has to be some group other than one they are likely to have personal connection to. The US empire is waging a war against lands that are largely Islamic, so your hatred isn’t just your own personal ignorance. It derives from power. That power is selling a narrative, and you are participating in that narrative, whether out of ignorance or malice, I don’t know, but when random Islamic people get beaten up or killed by mobs of ignorant Americans, some of that blood will be on your hands. I will say I’m happy to see the explosion of argument in these comments has brought more commentary from you besides calling people giggling sycophantic cunts all day. No one appears to be changing anyone’s mind, but at least that’s a positive.
No one wants to hate Islam for the sake of hating Islam, people hate islam because it represents illiberal values (More so in theocratic muslim majority nations than secular western nations) that are incompatible with an open and free modern society.
Why is it so wrong to report polls and repeat facts?
Why is it so wrong to ask people to think about what they would do in a situation?
Why do you keep insisting we are racists, knowing we aren’t, knowing we are criticizing an idea set?
I have actually reached a lot of minds through discussion, just apparently not yours. You are too tied to your close minded narrative and you are already stuck after doubling down on your black and white anti-state Chomsky’esque views.
If you can with a straight face claim we are responsible for violence against muslims then you are responsible for the oppression of liberal and secular muslims who are afraid to speak out in theocracies.
In fact, you are responsible for the growth of jihadism and you have blood on your hands the next time there is a terrorist attack perpetrated in the name of Islam because you have done the theocrats job for them by defending such vacuous and radically literal interpretations of the text by calling trying to open the discussion ‘bigots and racist and islamaphobic.’
Is TYT seriously deleting member comments now? I can’t find Yamo’s comment about TYT getting panned on Facebook over this retarded, ridiculous, self-exposing shit on Sam Harris?
I’ve suspected this for a while now. I also had a comment deleted in which funny enough I was replying to a Yamo87 comment.
I also have noticed over the last couple of weeks even, that TYT is deleting member-comments without notice/argument – not even a message that says what was “wrong” in hindsight… The first time it happened, I thought it was another “technical difficulty” – but then it happened again – this time a single comment – and now again…
Given all the disagreement I personally had with him, and not knowing what exactly he wrote, I still find that honestly unacceptable and would like to have at least an explanation, statement, rules of conduct etc
I personally doubt very much, that any of the comments I remember being deleted violated any of the usual rules, esp hence other comments still stand which contain profanity, curses, ad hominem attacks? Please we’re paying members and Cenk stated over and over and over again, that he’s against turning-off a comment section or deleting comments…
So please, at least a clear statement/explanation for what’s going on here!
Well said and noble.
Could just be a natural failure of the website programming, I was always under the impression only Jeni scanned these forums, why Jeni why??? Just kidding, but really, if someone is removing comments please don’t :) if it’s the website please get it fixed, if there are rules please let us know, it’s the first day of snow.
Well said. I 100% agree!
Cenk isn’t misrepresenting at this point, he is lying and openly slandering Sam Harris.
You hit the nail on the head. It’s no longer a debate of ideas but instead it’s Cenk, who I agree with 99.9% of the time, trying to find retribution by slandering Sam and in return losing credibility on the issue of Islamism.
No, I don’t see it – Cenk has his flaws in personal argumentation, but that’s true in dealing with Sam as well as others, including Reza Aslan, whom he is also misrepresenting all the time. Everyone is pointing out the interview with Sam as well as Karen Straughan, but everyone is ignoring the interview with Reza.
I completely disagree with Karen Straughan btw for example, hell, I thought Cenk gave in too much at the beginning and is substantively right, but it was still a shitty interview and he knows it, but he is refusing to say something productive about it and is doubling down to overplay his own weaknesses.
So, yes, he does that kind of things, but he still believes what he believes – and that#s true for Sam too. Everyone is always arguing as one sight is just doing it for the sake of argument, but you’re both wrong – both sides believe what they believe, are very passionate about it – all of this is honest disagreement. I saw the video with Sam and Secular Talk – as always Sam came across more relaxed and sympathetic to me than when I hear people talking about him, but I still disagree with him on 80% of the issues.
I think the main disagreement is in Sam`s first statement and that’s the disagreement that drives this whole debate: Sam says ignoring the problem of Islamism is what leads to the rise of the right-wing, fascism etc mainly i n Europe, but also in the US – I believe, and that’s true for Grenn, Cenk, Reza etc, I assume, that the way the New Atheism movement and their European counterparts treat Islam and Muslims is what leads to the rise of right-wing ideas and policies on which the actual Nazis, fascists etc thrive. That’s why both sides are so emotionally charged – while Sam thinks Cenk etc are “Islamist-apologists” and he explains in the video why he doesn’t see it as ad-hominem attack, because they share arguments with terroristic islamists, Cenk thinks Sam is a “racist, fascist, bigot” also not as ad-hominem attack, also knowing that Sam is not actually supporting those groups ad well as Sam should be aware that Cenk is not actually supporting Islamist groups, because Sam shares arguments with actual “bigots, racists, fascists”. He just is, OK. He shares arguments with Ben Carson and Donald Trump, some of the things fascists in Germany say about Islam sound sometimes literally like the arguments Sam uses against Islam – and that would be expected, if Sam is true too, because he thinks that the right-wing are using his arguments and winning the people that the left neglects in choosing not to address those issues.
So no, no one is slandering, misrepresenting for misrepresenting sake etc – there are true and honest disagreements – that’s all… When Sam says it’s ridiculous to go after body count, because so many people die in traffic accidents – my answer is “that’s why I don’t wanna worry about terrorism and/or Islamism/Whabism at all, but concentrate on transport policy… perspectives
You are utterly wrong on it being an honest disagreement. Remember, Sam sat down with Cenk for three hours and explained all these points of controversy to Cenk’s face with Cenk acknowledging Sam’s position on some of the topics.
Then, later, Cenk says Sam says something completely different.
It’s dishonest, man, unless you think Cenk is a stupid person, which I don’t. He is being dishonest. Also, Cenk’s ego got really damaged by the 3-hour discussion and the audience reaction to it. I’ve been here since 2009 and never felt Cenk hated any specific person until this Sam Harris thing.
For real, it’s become so toxic to talk about idea’s because of all the Harris hate Cenk has been fueling to his fanatic audience. I have been a paying member since 2009 so stop with the Sam Harris fanboy bullshit. I never fucking heard of Sam Harris until Cenk had plagiarist CJ Werlemen on TYT.
Scenario: ISIS has a nuke attached to an ICBM somewhere in ISIS territory in Syria, we don’t know exactly where. They may or may not nuke NYC in the next 24 hours. Consider these options:
1) They will nuke with 90% probability, If they nuke, 8.4 Million people in NYC will die. If we nuke first, 4.2 Million Syrians will die, but we wont get nuked.
2) They will nuke with 50% probability, If they nuke, 8.4 Million people in NYC will die. If we nuke first, 4.2 Million Syrians will die, but we wont get nuked.
3) They will nuke with 10% probability, If they nuke, 8.4 Million people in NYC will die. If we nuke first, 4.2 Million Syrians will die, but we wont get nuked.
This is the kind of decision we may have to make some day. Pretending that this is an easy call is childish. Saying that option (1) is immoral is delusional.
I see this call as very easy, as a leader of a nation. As anyone else, especially an academic, I can see the difficulty.
What is concerning about this is that given ISIS’ ideology, option 1 is way more plausible. This is exactly the dilemma that Sam was talking about – option 1 in expectation saves lives but requires a preemptive nuclear strike. That Cenk refuses to entertain this notion is telling.
So the difference between a nuke and conventional weapons is the amount of people it kills? The reason why pick a nuke and not conventional weapons is that bigger death toll? If that#s not what you’re saying please correct me, but I still want to figure out what a nuke would do, what conventional weapons couldn’t… The US has a lot of conventional weapons, so I’m still not convinced – besides, from where do you get the no. 4.2million? There are 22.85 million people in Syria, if you don’t kill them all, how can you be sure you hit the weapon – in your example, as well as Sam´s, you have no fn idea where the weapon is?
Sorry, but I’m still not convinced how killing the 4.2million people in Syria saves the 8.4 million people in NYC – especially through means of a nuke, in a scenario where conventional weapons can’t do the trick? Sorry, but what we never got, I think, is how shitty a weapon a nuke really is – it’s basically the least effective weapon we’ve ever created…
The numbers I picked were to illustrate a point – there are some circumstances where it might be reasonable for a preemptive nuclear strike. Your objection seems to be that the scenario is implausible, and you seem to want to pick it apart via details: where did the numbers come from, we wouldn’t know where the nukes were, etc. This is beside the point. The point is that under a certain set of circumstances (they have nukes, will use them, and we know roughly, but not exactly, where they are) where a preemptive strike is reasonable.
We don’t want to be in that circumstance, so we have to do our best to avoid that. Sam’s whole point is that we don’t want to be there, so we have to convince people that political Islam is not the answer.
my point is: There is NO realistic, theoretical scenario where the use of nuclear weapons is justified. That’s my POV. Every time people try to create a concrete scenario, I’ll pick it apart – YES – to make it abundantly clear, that none of that is realistic and that there is ALWAYS an alternative…
And btw “political Islam is not the answer” is one of the most acknowledged truths in the western world – it’s like to say “murder is not the answer”. Do you really think, if I would ask Cenk, CJ, Glenn or anyone of this camp, they’d object to that statement? The question is not, if political Islam is right or not, but what do we do about it, what are the right methods to deal with it – do we allow people do practice their religion, if they interpret it in a secular way – do we acknowledge that every religion that is interpreted and lived in a secular way is equal to any other religion or atheism for that matter? Those are the real points of disagreement.
In my opinion, your head is in the sand and I wouldn’t want you in a leadership position. NOT because you disagree with us, but because you aren’t able to entertain ideas without supporting them.
no problem with that – besides – hey, Sam Harris says those “theoreticals” have real life implications – so yes, I choose to entertain the thought experiments that best suit my cause…
and btw, I believe that what’s Sam doing as well, afterall, he said we should be ready for a time when we’re so strong that we can influence the world, we should have our morals straight…
in his eyes, I might or might not be a morally imcompetant, but I do have my moals straight – all those thought experiments have an answer: No, I would in NO circumstances torture someone, or drop a nuke, or profile people based on their age, ethinicity, gender or religion. NO MATTER WHAT! I think that’s abundantly clear. And the reason why, is that those experiments, even though he says they’ve real consequences, are all incredibly unrealistic. So what you’re actually communicating – granted, I have no idea, if conscious or unconscious – is not the theoretical, but the assumption, that those dualisms are reality, that a situation could theoretically exist in which we have to torture someone in order to avoid a 500K bomb, or that we have to nuke someone to save our lifes or way of life, that a muslim person is on average more likely to be dangerous than a christian and so on and so forth – That’s exactly what I already said in my post above: I take his challenge, I don’t have to misrepresent him to get m,y point accross, but I still disagree – if you think that moral is insane – you have to make sure that I never get in any influencial position, office or position of power :-) But I’ll keep fighting for my ideas…
“No, I would in NO circumstances torture someone, or drop a nuke, or profile people based on their age, ethinicity, gender or religion. NO MATTER WHAT! ”
You simply aren’t being imaginative enough.
Vanbronco, do you think Cenk is misrepresenting Sam?
I think it’s a mix of misinterpretation, personal fear of possible consequences (his whole family is Muslim after all, and Islamophobia, if Sam has anything to do with it or not, does exist – in Germany 416 violent attacks on refugees and/or refugee shelters this year alone including Molotov cocktails, stones thrown on people etc), to a certain degree he’s unable to understand the theory behind it (“is it more or less likely that Jesus returns in a particular place or undefined” which should be obvious), and at this point in time – I think a little bit of the child comes into play “I never correct myself, not even details/nuances – never apologize”…
but for him, in his mind, that’s legitimized by the “overall wrongness” of Sam Harris…
Ok, so you think this could *never* happen. Fair enough. If that is the case, then Sam is entertaining a nuclear strike in a situation that would *never* occur, so what is the problem with his position?
If this is really like saying, “I will nuke under the condition that 1+1=3” then is that really a dangerous position?
No, I think
A In a situation like that, my answer would ALWAYS be no
(that’s a difference)
B I think Sam raises the question, if there is EVER a situation were you have to choose a nuclear strike (than he gives an example) – he wants people to think about it. I did. Again, he himself says “my” position (always no) would be imbecile, so he did reveal a policy position, that I just happen to disagree with
C The problem is, that we have an organized anti-Islamic movement around the globe right now – people attacking and killing Muslims with institutional support (public figures make excuses, deny to call it terror, victim blaming – all that jazz) – In a situation like that (only in a situation like that), I find it extremely insensitive to raise those questions, because you’re spilling oil on their hatred, intended or not…
Interesting. What if we knew with 100% certainty that they were going to nuke? Lets say that the terrorists have a video feed of a nuclear warhead getting fired up in Syria, and we have nukes in the air already that we can arm or disarm via satellite signal.
You see the terrorists’ nuke on the platform, ignition sequence engaged, fire coming out from the tail end of the rocket, etc. You can arm your nukes and wipe it out before the missile launches, killing 4.2 Million Syrians and saving 8.4 million New Yorkers. Is it worth it?
I don’t think option 1 is even slightly plausible. The odds of ISIS getting an ICBM with a nuke capable of hitting NY is not likely. The odds they would know how to use is isn’t likely. The odds of us knowing they have one but not knowing where is not likely. The odds of us knowing they have it but not preparing our missile defense system isn’t likely. It’s an interesting thought experiment, but it’s worthless in reality. Situations in the real world are more complicated than that.
Also, option 1 is still immoral because there is still a 10% chance that they didn’t intend on nuking NY. Things with a 10% chance of happening, happen all the time. The other side of option 1 looks like this: They will not nuke with 10% probability, If they don’t nuke, 8.4 Million people in NYC are not in danger. If we nuke first, 4.2 Million Syrians will die for no reason (that’s the immoral part).
Even at 90%, you can’t assume an attack is inevitable, and like I mentioned earlier, there are other options besides a nuclear first strike. The thought experiment is pointless, unless your point is to provoke irrational fear.
I want you no where near important decisions.
You are what Sam Harris meant by “I’ll vote for Ben Carson before Noam Chomski”
Sam Harris says this is a thought experiment, not a policy he endorses. Why don’t you understand that? This “what if” situation is unlikely to ever happen.
If you read it the way Harris intends it to be read, it’s about a moral question. You should read Harris’ book “The Moral Landscape.” It talks about how morality can be measured by the amount of human suffering. Preemptively murdering millions of people out of fear, when you don’t even know if an attack is ever going to happen, is the definition of immoral.
No, nuking in option 1 isn’t immoral. It is the only moral position. By nuking, you are saving .9*(8.4 – 4.2) + .1(-4.2) = 3.36 million lives in expectation. In effect, by not nuking you would expect 3.36 million *more* people to die.
You might not think that this particular event realistic, that is fine. But this is a red herring. I can come up with much more realistic scenarios. (e.g. Al Qaeda infiltrates the Pakistani military and steals launch codes, etc.) We cant pretend that the concept of extremists getting their hands on nuclear weapons is impossible. Hence, then we have to think about what happens if it does.
You see – not Sam Harris is the problem – but you are definitely now arguing in favor of a strike in your scenario 1 – that’s the disagreement – that’s what Cenk pointed out on the show…
Totally. I’m saying that I would be willing to push the fat person in front of a train to save four people, and I’m generalizing that principle to counterterrorism. Furthermore, even if you or Cenk thinks that that is wrong, we have to realize that this is an ethical dilemma – we cant simply say that Sam is genocidal, or that he favors a nuclear first strike without context.
This is not an easy problem.
Your entire scenario is a false dilemma and an appeal to fear. There is no situation where a nuclear first strike is the only possible option. You’re making an appeal to probability and a base rate fallacy too.
When you assume the action saves 3.6 million lives, you’re making a hasty generalization error because you’re ignoring possibility that NY isn’t the target or the nuclear first strike fails to prevent the attack. Both are possible in your scenario. You’re neglecting the possibility that you are killing 4.2 Million Syrians for no reason.
Based on the logical fallacies you’re swimming in, you’re wrong from a moral thought argument, and you are wrong from a policy position as well.
Do you honestly think there will be no additional consequences to engaging in a nuclear first strike? I can think of a few nuclear armed states that would view that action as a direct threat. They could then use your own arguments to justify making their own first strikes against the US. You claim you’d be saving 3.6 Million lives, but you’d also be putting 320 million lives at risk (which is immoral as well).
You know you wouldn’t be entertaining these tough and interesting ideas if Sam Harris hadn’t brought them up, so from the Harris perspective, Mission Accomplished. Even if you disagree, people are thinking about the ideas.
Like I said, I’m a Sam Harris fan. However, Cenk absolutely has a point that people (even people on Sam’s side) are confusing a morality thought experiment, which nearly always requires a false dilemma, with actual policy positions. When you come up with the scenario, you have to outline guidelines. Those guidelines paint a narrative. When you create a thought experiment scenario where a group of Muslims cannot be dealt with in any other way than a nuke, you have to create a lot of generalizations about that situation where all the Muslims involved have a death wish. All the Muslims involved want to kill Americans no matter the cost. It creates a scenario that Sam himself doesn’t believe exists. Based on comments here by some of his fans, not everyone understands that. The onus is on him to address that in a way other than claiming everyone is taking him out of context. When his own defenders don’t get it, we can point to his methods of communication.
That’s why it’s better to use non-reality based situations in these experiments. Think of the one where you save 5 men on a train track by pushing one man in front of the train. No one confuses that with policy or reality.
Then use reality-based situations to communicate actual nuanced policies because reality is more nuanced than a thought experiment.
Base rate fallacy has to do with ignoring the underlying probability of an event when given a signal that the event might be occurring. In this case, I have explicitly specified the probabilities of the event in question – no signals were involved – so base rate fallacy does not apply.
Appeal to probability is to take for granted that something will happen because it will probably happen. I’m not taking it for granted – I am explicitly saying that it will occur with probability of .9, and I am explicitly using that probability in my calculations. Note that I said you would be saving lives “in expectation”. This was a deliberate choice of words. You might want to take a second and google “expected value.”
I’m not making the hasty generalization, hasty generalization involves coming to a conclusion based off of insufficient evidence. In this case, since them targeting NYC is *part of the hypothetical.* I’m not generalizing – I know it because I specified that previously. I’m also not neglecting that I would be killing 4.2 Million Syrians for no reason, I explicitly specified that that would happen with a probability of .1.
Do you understand how hypotheticals work? If I asked you what you would do in the trolly problem would you respond with “hasty generalization, you don’t know that pushing the fat man on the tracks will stop the train”?
“What is concerning about this is that given ISIS’ ideology, option 1 is way more plausible.”
When you use your theoretical situation to make an assertion like the one above, you have left the realm of thought experiments, and you are now making a statement of fact in the real world. Reread your own comments in the context you created, and you will understand the fallacies I mentioned.
You are demonstrating the validity of my argument that attempting to use “real-world scenarios” in thought experiments (as Harris often does) muddies the waters, lessens the value of the thought experiment, and provides no useful policy discussions whatsoever.
“When you assume the action saves 3.6 million lives, you’re making a hasty generalization error because you’re ignoring possibility that NY isn’t the target or the nuclear first strike fails to prevent the attack. ”
When you accused me of making the hasty generalization fallacy, you were referring to things postulated in the hypothetical – not which set of probabilities are the more likely in the event of ISIS getting a nuke.
Thank you forby our investigative journalism (also going back to pre internet records) on the Fundamentals Flawed story….that was quiet shocking and really should get more national attention.
What the fuck?
My god think of this Sam Harris / Donald Trump pro nuclear genocide option from the perspective of anyone in the middle east who has been bombed by drones….it’s not much of a leap to think that the bombers would would increase the size of their bombs.
That kind of rhetoric after mass bombings is terrorism.
Ugh Fox is doing the work of the Charleston shooter in instigating race wars.
I like that people bring up substantive points, even Harris quotes, more and more – it gives us the opportunity to actually talk about the issues in detail, instead of calling each other names all the time. If you say Harris is misrepresented by Cenk, or Cenk is just butt hurt, or it’s a cat fight etc – just bring up the Harris quote and how you think it’s to be interpreted – what would be the accurate representation of his statements – otherwise it’s just not helpful. It’s also not helpful to call each other “Harris-fan-boys” and/or paid Russian trolls – how is THAT helping the debate? We are people that all like the show in general, but happen to disagree on 1 or 2 issues – how could it be any different? We’re all from different individual cultures (city, state, country, continent, religion, atheism, socio-economic status, personal interests, family etc etc etc) of course we don’t agree on everything. Let’s not forget, and that’s maybe the biggest problem I personally have with Harris, that the problem of terrorism (however you interpret it) is by no means one of the, let alone the, most important issue in the world – climate change, access to fresh water & food, the global finance system, poverty, racism, sexism etc etc etc – even after Paris much much much more people die in car accidents or falling from a ladder than being killed or injured in a terrorist attack – let’s not forget that!
I think the evidence to dderrs being a pro-Russian commentator is of such a magnitude as to not be able to be denied. I would bet money that 95%+ of his comments are exclusively pro-Russian and only on shows where Russia is discussed. He is like the Rush Limbaugh for Russia.
I think Sam is deeply worried about Islamic terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons and that is why he puts such value on that issue. I agree with him. The detonation of a nuclear device in a Western city would not even be the worst of it, it would be the sweeping into power of right wing fascists because the political left was too busy ignoring the problem and pushing for tolerance and acceptance of bad ideas.
bingo
I think most reasonable people would agree, and I’m just gna add I think Harris thinks those all those other issues are important too. I’ve heard Sam talk with multiple people about how car accidents kill more in the US. Sam’s focused on the spreading liberal principle through the islamic world, inspiring free thinkers and liberal muslims wherever they are left alive to speak out and reform the authoritarian conservative culture they find themselves in is imperative if we want to try to avoid a radical terror group getting nuclear weapons and doing who knows what.
I gotta’ say. Cenk wins on the “thought experiment” debate with Harris. Hands down. It’s becoming painfully obvious that people like Harris are finding the only way to stay on top of the news pile is to continue to ratchet up and distort important and controversial issues.
Full disagree.
Your prerogative. :-) Thanks for responding.
As Cenk says, I agree and I disagree. I agree they had a thought experiment, I disagree that Cenk won it. Sometimes the truth is ugly, of course it’s preferable to torture one guy if you can save another, the only thing Cenk refused to grant was that such a scenario could ever exist even though Sam has spoke of a real instances (where some cops slapped around a guy forcing them to tell him where he stole a car with a baby in it) with that Secular Kyle kid and Kyle said he wouldn’t slap the guy either. Kyle and Cenk just refuse to acknowledge there would ever be justifiable scenario and kyle said that might be a moral failing on his part. Truth is that if you were given the choice between beating up one guy or your family being raped and murdered you would obviously choose beating up the guy, you have to very sure of the world to assume no such scenario has ever or could ever exist. I think Cenk is extrapolating how terribly inefficient our torture policies have been to all instances of torture. I think there are cases, actual moments of existential necessity, where it has been employed but also like Harris it should always be illegal and then the legal system would decide if it was ethical. I disagree with the US torture policies (making it legal) because it seems like it’s turned into a psychotic inhuman experiment, But I can grant that such a scenario could exist, and I’m also under no illusion that you would get much useful information from it but as a last resort measure, I can see it. Thus, Sam wins the thought experiment.
Oh I think you must have been referring to the other thought experiment where Cenk can’t imagine doing a nuclear first strike if he had certainty that a nuclear bomb was about to be launched by a terror group and he knew where they were. Cenk wouldn’t kill their civilians, he would risk a nuclear bomb going off. It’s a toughie to be honest, but if we really had no other choice, if the clock ran out we feared nuclear exchanges from around the world if one terror group started launching, I can see how nuking the area could be a last resort or maybe one could just detonate a nuke above the surface to fry the electronics in an EMP if it ever came down to that. Moral questions are fun!
I’m not sure where you’re going with your example scenarios, but I challenge the premise that the US, both here and abroad, always, if ever, acts on the premise of the most good for the most people. If anything the US military abroad (the only political means we see to all ends), and domestic policing at home, have been notoriously and unilaterally based on the “good” of the 1% who benefit from the state’s corporate protectionist policies (oil, etc), personal grudges (Bush II avenging Bush I in Iraq), crony capitalism (Cheney/Haliburton) and white privilege on the streets of America. If our government truly wished to do the most good for the most people it would cut the military by half, pull us out of foreign quagmires and double down our efforts to educate the “most people”–the only true way to do the “most good” in America–and break up the police state white gang mentality. It’s insane to argue about which foreign country to invade next when the country you claim to be defending is literally and figuratively falling to pieces and seriously considering an insane, Fascist, narcissistic blowhard for president.
“I’m not sure where you’re going with your example scenarios, but I challenge the premise that the US, both here and abroad, always, if ever, acts on the premise of the most good for the most people.”
Not my position. Not defending the US at all, not in favor of any past invasions or any future invasions. My point is what I already wrote to you.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
Oh I think you must have been referring to the other thought experiment where Cenk can’t imagine doing a nuclear first strike if he had certainty that a nuclear bomb was about to be launched by a terror group and he knew where they were. Cenk wouldn’t kill their civilians, he would risk a nuclear bomb going off. It’s a toughie to be honest, but if we really had no other choice, if the clock ran out we feared nuclear exchanges from around the world if one terror group started launching, I can see how nuking the area could be a last resort or maybe one could just detonate a nuke above the surface to fry the electronics in an EMP if it ever came down to that. Moral questions are fun!
We don’t live in a world of 100% certainty or such limited options. There are millions of other more likely scenarios that we could do moral thought experiments on. Harris was being provocative with the nuclear first strike concept (Why nuclear? Why not take out their missile silos with conventional weapons?). He was purposely being outrageous, then he pretends to be the victim of outrage. I like Harris, but this nuclear strike argument is more of a strategy of self promotion, than practical political policy. The problem comes in when we base public policy on thought experiments instead of reality.
Read the page and a half about it in his first book if you want to ask questions he already answered 14 years ago.
The only person pretending to be outraged is Cenk who has a habit of lying about what peoples views are and blowing shit out of proportion. He has done it multiple times and it has been documented, said Sam hates all muslims, claimed Sam said ‘Vast Majorities of Muslims believe these things’, said Sam wants to nuke the Middle East, said Sam wants to Torture, makes it sound like Sam loves profiling when Sam is actually in favor of anti-profiling (i.e. not searching the 94 year old japanese woman).
Sam has very nuanced conversations about all these topics but he does not gleefully want any of the above. He says torture should always be illegal and is very clear he is not talking about all muslims and he never said vast majority and when he does talk about precision he is careful to use polling data to speak about how many hold certain perceptions. He spoke about how the nuclear option may be the only response when there is nuke in a given area but we can’t pinpoint exactly where. You can disagree but to slime someone and lie about them for bringing up what many consider to be a very important topic is wrong and why many use the term regressive.
Cenk: Harris endorses torture and a nuclear first strike.
Harris: Cenk lied about me. That was just a thought experiment, not an endorsement of policy. Those are both immoral and should not be done.
Cenk: But when you use such outrageous examples in your thought experiments, you are tacitly endorsing those policies. Even your own readers are going to intemperate it as endorsement.
So which is it? Is it just a thought experiment, or is it an endorsement of policy? I’ve read your posts. You’ve read the book, and you’re treating it as endorsements.
“What if…” thought experiments aren’t the same as nuance. Sam is picking those particular examples for a reason. Those “what if” situations don’t happen in real life, and this entire comment section is full of Harris supporters endorsing those policies as a result.
He’s a philosopher. Either you don’t know what that is, or you have no, none, nada, zip, first hand knowledge of Sam’s work. Everything you know about him is what was told to you by people like Cenk.
This from the guy who argues for the polices Sam says are thought experiments. I’ve read some of his books, and I understand that he doesn’t endorse those types of policies. You don’t seem to realize that.
Sam Harris is not just a philosopher, he’s a neuroscientist. He understands the difference between stated beliefs and accepted beliefs, and they don’t always line up. He also understands that using these types of thought experiments in the context of dealing with ISIS is not a practical way to find a solution, and it can lead to people, like yourself, arguing in favor of the types of policies Sam Harris claims to find morally reprehensible. The onus is on him to address that.
Based on your policy views on Pakistan and Japan, Harris would use you as an example of someone who took him out of context. Comment after comment, you’ve demonstrated the validity of Cenk’s arguments against using those types of thought experiments to address actual moral problems in the real world.
Because I agree with the nuking of Japan, something we have 20/20 hindsight on by the way, and I agree with the theoretical pre-emptive nuking of ISIS in the circumstance that THEY have obtained a nuclear weapon, that puts me in opposition to Sam?
Sam never endorsed any policy, right. He put the thought experiment out there. I thought about it. My conclusion is it is MORE immoral to expose your people to attack by ISIS using a nuclear weapon than to pre-emptively nuke a large area.
Can we agree our lives are more important than terrorist lives? I think so. “What about the innocents?” you will say. What about our innocents?
This thought experiment is ISIS having a nuke. Suicidal assholes who WANT to die. That’s Sam’s point.
It would have been morally reprehensible for Truman to send, according to the military, 1,000,000 GI’s to injury or death in the invasion of homeland Japan.
It would be morally reprehensible for Barack Obama to say “Golly, I sure hope they don’t!” after learning from intel that ISIS has an ICBM and a nuke attached to it aimed at NYC.
All your shit about likelihood is BESIDES THE POINT. That’s not part of the thought experiment.
Again, Sam says it’s a thought experiment, not a policy he endorses. You’re proving Cenk right again.
Killing 4.4 million Syrians because you thought ISIS may possibly use a nuke against NY is morally wrong according to Harris’ own definition of morality.
“It would have been morally reprehensible for Truman to send, according to the military, 1,000,000 GI’s to injury or death in the invasion of homeland Japan.”
Red Herring and False Equivalence
“It would be morally reprehensible for Barack Obama to say “Golly, I sure hope they don’t!” after learning from intel that ISIS has an ICBM and a nuke attached to it aimed at NYC.”
Straw Man and False Dilemma
Sam Harris nuclear argument is this: if Pakistan fell and ISIS took over their nuclear stock pile, would you, as president:
A.) Hope ISIS doesn’t nuke you or your allies
B.) Nuke them first
I’m solidly on B and Japan should have been nuked and I would push the button myself if I got the chance to go back in time and do it.
That’s exactly why Cenk is right about Harris – Thank you for making the dualism blatantly obvious. Why in the world would B an alternative to A, let alone the only solution? If you don’t know where the warheads are – why would a nuke destroy them? Are you sure that even after you nuke them, there aren’t enough people left to start a counter attack? How is a nuke helping the situation, at all? He is the one bringing up the nuke – nobody else thinks of this as even a theoretical option… And btw, he did say the exact same thing in the Interview with Cenk, not only in 2006. He said, that he is asking himself the question, if our society today is still willing to do what’s necessary, but he never explains, why in the world a fire bombing or nuking someone would or could be a necessary thing to do, as both of those things create bigger problems than the ones you’re trying to solve… The only people who think that those things, as well as torture or labeling or profiling people, are in any way shape or form even theoretical solutions for any of our problems (of course without ever explaining how or why), let alone Islamism, jihadism or militant fundamentalism have been solely on the extreme conservative, right-wing side of things in the last couple of decades. Harris is definitely responsible for bringing this kind of thoughts up again amongst liberals and the left-wing – That’s the real issue!
ISIS and most Islamic terrorists believe in paradise and aren’t afraid to die. If you are saying “we don’t know that bin Laden or ISIS would use a nuke if they had one” then I think that is beyond naive and wholly ignorant of those people and their ideology.
If you are arguing the practicality of that (Islamic nuts taking over Pakistan), then you are not aware of the Geo-political situation there. Obama was once asked, “What keeps you up at night?” and he responded, “Pakistan.”
If you are arguing that the Allied actions in WW2 are, in hindsight, reprehensible and shouldn’t have been done, fuck you. Drink poison.
So yes, your options are B or A. We are dealing with religious nutjobs, not secular political leaders.
Isn’t it known that the Japanese were on the brink of surrender, before we even dropped the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? None the less, the poison line is a bit much. At least try and be civil.
We killed more people in conventional firebombing of Tokyo than both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think the weapons were used by Truman as like a cock waving competition, he was flexing his dick for the russians. The obvious justification is the Allies wanted a more complete surrender but still, let the record note the war was over and the bombs could have been avoided, though the military loves to make the choice seem like it was either a million marines die taking tokyo or we nuke em.
That’s exactly my understanding, how am I wrong?
I think dropping the nukes was one of those things we didn’t have to do at the end of WWII and I don’t want to drink poison. I think Truman was largely an illiterate and lazy clown but that’s just me. I clearly understand the sentiment of your point, my own view from the information I have absorbed points to the dropping of the bombs being more about geo- political posturing.
I don’t want you to drink poison either, hence my request for clarification :)
I’ve read all the stuff sent to me by gathly and the like, it was quotes from generals and other relevant people. I’m not impressed by quotes of high ranking people for the simple reason that there were other high ranking people, unquoted in that material, that disagreed. Obviously. I am also unimpressed by the “About to surrender” argument. If you didn’t surrender when we asked and we nuked you, and you don’t immediately send a groveling surrender from the Emperor, then hell yeah, nuke those motherfuckers again. I want your surrender and I want it NOW!
I am totally open to the idea that the second nuke was posturing, even if right now I’ve seen no evidence to prove that to me. If you can show me a certified communication from Japan saying “We surrender!” that is postmarked before the second nuclear detonation, then you are right and I will concede fully.
I don’t think I would find such materials, I’ve only ever seen that they were on the verge of surrendering. But indeed you make interesting points, and this nicely relates to Sam’s thought experiment because the Japanese in WWII were indeed the closest thing we’ve fought to a suicidal enemy until global jihadists moved into the fold. And how did we deal with that proud fearless enemy?
Hahahahaha
No, all I’m saying is, that a nuke doesn’t do shit, if the conventional weapons won’t work – the west has a ton of conventional weapons – a nuke is still a weapon, a powerful one, a weapon nonetheless – if you don’t know where the target is – it’s not an alternative, especially hence you wrote yourself, that your opponent is ready to die – someone will survive, someone always survives, and launch their nuke regardless… Diplomacy doesn’t have to even involve them – they have to do deals with someone, we just have to stop that support…
That brings me to another question – if we’re at war with Islam, what do you think what kind of policies are necessary today to fight/win this war? Harris brings in policies in hypothetical scenarios, but he seldom answers his own hypothetical questions – we should agree on that, hence that’s Cenk’s misrepresentation, right? That he assumes his answer? – that’s a shame, because I would be interested…
Doesn’t matter, my question’s not for Harris, but for Cenk critics on this issue – What would you do? What would be the right policies?
Read Islam and the Future of tolerance, Maajid makes the path and goals pretty clear. Deprogram islamists, encourage secular free thinkers and liberal muslims in theocracies to encourage a more tolerant interpretation of the faith which will lead to a tolerant society which will eventually lead to a pluralistic and open society which can be a secular democracy. I don’t think Sam hides these goals you just don’t hear them because Cenk is yelling really really loudly.
Here’s a moral thought experiment:
You capture 100 ISIS members. They can be deprogrammed with 99% efficiency, but the one person who cannot be deprogrammed could go on to kill 300 people in a terrorist attack. Do you abandon your deprogram policy and kill the 100 ISIS members to save the 300 people?
This scenario is much more likely to actually happen than the first strike nuke situation, and it would point to an individual’s actual policy positions.
Yes, or at the least life time sentences.
So you disagree with Harris’s policy of deprogramming, and his policy of not actually using a preemptive nuclear strike in a reality-based situation?
Maajid Nawaz is actually more the proponent of deprogramming since he was himself a radical islamist at one point in time. Your thought experiment is not more likely to happen just because you think it is, your hypothetical is rife with as much uncertainty as the nuclear example, if you can’t imagine someone certainly has a bomb in some area that is certainly about to be launched then you can’t imagine any certainty for any policy, which makes your thought experiment pointless. However if you want to grant certainty as a possibility in a counterfactual hypothetical world then I would say it’s morally justified to kill 100 tyrants to save 300 subjects from those 100 tyrants.
However the more likely reality is that deprogramming radicalism saves way more lives that might have been potentially harmed by radicals (and is more morally justifiable than murder) and it also disarms future generations from being programmed in a similarly radical way.
If you added the variable ‘for every radical deprogrammed 31 potential targets were avoided’ then deprogramming would be more preferable than extermination.
Extermination does not get rid of the ideas or shape the debate in any healthy way compared to old fashion deprogramming by open conversation.
I would argue that my scenario is more likely because we’ve already captured more than 100 ISIS members, and Pakistan doesn’t have a nuke capable of hitting NY, India, yes. NY, not even close.
You are correct, my experiment is rife with uncertainty and a lack of nuance. Welcome to the world of thought experiments. It does, however start a discussion about when people give up on their stated polices and embrace a different tactic.
It’s not that I can’t imagine the nuclear situation. I can. I can also imagine a zombie outbreak or an alien invasion. All 3 can be used to create interesting scenarios that question moral choices, and none is going to happen. Therefore its not useful when discussing policy.
I have another experiment for you. ISIS hacks into our nuclear launch capabilities and takes over 1 nuke. However, we don’t know which one it is. Do we destroy our entire nuclear arsenal, or do we risk ISIS launching a nuclear strike on us or out allies?
So if we nuke someone defensively, and someone survives to maybe nuke us back one day, we shouldn’t defend ourselves? Is that your argument?
My solution is:
Complete withdrawal from the Middle East
No more drones
Massive increase in border security and customs enforcement
You can say this to regressive but this is what they hear “You are defending US invasions just because you want to invade more muslims lands! Islamophobe bigot!” And this is why this debate is so toxic. Liberals on the left don’t even realize they are doing this which makes it much more frightening.
You’re so ignorant and that’s why I never respond to Harris supporters. But I have to on this one. The Nuclear weapons in Pakistan is already in the hands of deeply religious people. Some I would even consider nut jobs. Who do you think was keeping bin laden hidden for all these years??? Al Qaeda? No you ignorant schmuck it was Pakistani government. So please you stfu and go drink poison.
A savage from the 3rd world calls me ignorant, ha! The current Pakistani government isn’t ISIS, is that your point? That was my point to you stupid fuck. Go fly into a building at 500 mph, preferably a building in Pakistan.
I’m an American citizen in case you’re curious. And they’re you go… Your true nature is out. That’s who you are… A racist fuck
Was that ever in doubt?
I wonder if you guys will believe me when I tell you I’m Persian. Racist..lol. You’ve neutered that term with profligate use of it.
Yes, his name is Mohammed and I made fun of that. How racist. I also laugh at the joke about tin cans, stairs, and Asian names. HOW DARE I.
I’m not sure what point you were trying to make but you actually made Gryphons point while insulting him. He just said Pakistan keeps obama up at night because they are religious nut jobs with nukes.
How did I make his point. I’m saying that Harris supporters think that if Islamists have a nuclear weapon they’ll launch it but they didnt…. :/
The president is afraid Pakistan is so radical there is a chance possibility that one of their ‘warheads’ will be stolen by an extremist group and used by that group to absolve Pakistan of clearly being implicated. The most likely scenario we face currently is a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India.
You made his point. Harris’s point wasn’t that if Islamists ever have a nuclear weapon they will use it immediately, but how much are you willing to bet if a group like ISIS had a nuclear weapon they would choose not to use it?
Stolen or lost or misplaced, just because Pakistan has nukes doesn’t mean Pakistan will be the one to fire them. They can give them to another group to absolve themselves of any wrong doing.
They hid bin Laden for years and lied about it. Fuck Pakistan.
And no they haven’t launched any nuclear weapons. Thought I would clarify that since your ignorant ass is probably wondering about that. They will never launch it because just like the nut job Christians in the CIA and the American military government they too realize the what the consequences for their actions will be.
Duh? Stupid cunt.
The whole point of this discussion was that there are clearly people who are suicidal and not rational who could give a fuck about ending the world.
Nope. That’s not his argument. Harris says this is just a thought experiment about morality. He says people who like Cenk who claim he endorses a nuclear first strike as a policy position are taking him out of context.
So Cenk retreads old ground with the Sam Harris nuclear first strike argument. Does anyone, Cenk boot licker or Sam Harris fan, think Cenk isn’t deeply hurt and embarrassed about this whole collision with Sam Harris? Cenk is so deeply invested in his hate of Sam Harris that he doubled down on his not understanding probability theory and then, the hallmark of the stupid, laughed at people who do understand it.
Oy vey. I used to deeply, deeply respect Cenk. I fucking loved that man. But his encounter with Sam Harris has really exposed him as not that bright, deeply invested in his own agenda, not a journalist or even an attempt at one, and most sadly, is willing to lie to us.
Reminder: Sam explained this to Cenk’s face. Anyone here think Cenk isn’t being disgustingly dishonest?
Cenk is talking about probability from his perspective as an atheist. Sam was talking about probability from the general non theists perspective, that’s the difference. I’m sure Cenk understands that something even a low probability event can still be stated as greater than zero probability, I don’t think that’s a hard thing to understand, but they were just speaking from different perspectives I think, hence the confusion.
Also, I don’t think Cenk lied or misrepresented anything. Don’t know what you’re argument for that is. If Cenk isn’t saying muslims are terrible human beings, he is considered a liar from the harrisites.
I’m sure Cenk doesn’t understand probability. He showed us.
–Trump, “Nobody wants to end religious institutions..””
Wrong.. I do!! Religion is poison.
DOWN WITH RELIGION!!!!
RISE WITH REASON!!!!!
Religion & Reason are not mutually exclusive. No reasonable person would think this.
The only “Poison” here is the idea of destroying another group permanently / removing or banning an idea entirely.
Whether you are a muslim who believes all other religions should be destroyed for being poison to the truth, or an Atheist who thinks exactly the same way- it’s all poisonous.
This is the problem for many of us with the “New Atheist” crowd, the Sam Harris followers, etc. They are militant atheists. They are incredibly unreasonable, biased, hateful. Guess what? They are showing all the same symptoms of a religious fundamentalist.
For all reasonable people, religious or atheist, it is easy to see these types for what they are: fundamentalist / extremists. The irony is that they fail to realize that the are the exact “Poison” they are trying to abolish. Oh the irony… oh the sadness :(
Just like a radical muslim, fundamentalist christian, militant atheist. It’s all the same psychology, the same cognitive bias, the same hatred, the exact same mindset…
All reasonable people, regardless of culture, religion, race, or creed would agree:
1. Don’t be assholes to one another. Treat each other well.
2. Violence is not the answer.
3. Nuclear Strikes are a monstrous, horrendous idea that benefits no one.
4. Calm the Fuck Down. You aren’t being poisoned. Society is the way it is for a million different reasons and far more nuance than any “one answer” can ever claim.
5. There are bad people in the world in every group.
6. There are good people in the world in every group.
I made this comment NOT to say “These are the requirements to be a good guy!” Noooo!
But to show how it’s not what you believe, it’s your actions.
There is real idealogy, real belief, of how we should treat our fellow man. That is either with love and mercy, or with hatred and violence. All people, regardless of color or creed, will agree that the latter is bad for us and the former is better.
Who objects to love? Who objects to mercy, forgiveness, or generosity? Who would be against charity, helping others, or good intentions?
Who is opposed to love? Who wants violence, wants death, wants isolation, wants persecution? Who silences ideas and who believes in freedom of expression?
This is how you tell the good from the bad. Through action. Through their actual beliefs, not their shallow, vague labels.
“Religion & Reason are not mutually exclusive.”
-ronneyrulez
What a cunt, then he compared atheism to fundamentalist religion. Full retard.
And he sort wholly avoided the simple fact that religion makes reasonable people do unreasonable things while fully thinking they are being reasonable. And of course ronny went full Ben Affleck mischaracterizing everything, he’s fighting for his liberal life right now and this is the new tactic on the left. Their playbook is to tell you what you are thinking, that you like to eat babies for example and then they call you names for the positions they have made up for in their head. And then they call you unreasonable and bigot and pivot to US foreign policy when you are talking about 1300 years of history.
If you think religion doesn’t make people do violent things, then you have to think people are naturally programmed to riot over cartoons regardless of what their religion says about drawing cartoons. I think religion makes people riot over cartoons just like how I think religion made many fundamentalist christians hate gay people and refuse to let them marry.
Way to have such a huge boner for Sam Harris that your entire frontal lobe fails.
Such a hypocrite. You constantly cry “You’re misrepresenting me!” but the moment you get the chance, you misrepresent others as fast as humanly possible. That boner for Sam Harris must be so hard it’s painful.
But sure, please by all means translate “a specific group of fundamentalist who claim to oppose religious fundies because they’re atheist despite being just like the religious fundies in every single way.” to “All atheists are bad, I hate atheists, and there’s no such thing as religious fundamentalists!”
It’s also great that you also feel the need to misrepresent human violence, as if religious idealogy is the only factor in what makes a human violent. I guess our biology doesn’t count right? The moment you declare there is no god, you somehow become immune to the psychological flaws that result in human beings thinking like religious fundamentalists.
Logic & Reason are obviously not the forte of Sam Harris followers. Then again… that’s a given.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
GREAT reply
“And of course ronny went full Ben Affleck ”
Oh BTW, I forgot to thank you for this compliment! :)
The irony in you Harris followers is overflowing to the point of feeling sorry for you.
If you are at all capable of Critical Thinking. If you even know what that means or how you achieve it, then you will absolutely consider the following:
What you just said in the following paragraph applies to you, not me.
“And he sort wholly avoided the simple fact that religion makes reasonable people do unreasonable things while fully thinking they are being reasonable. “
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
“What a cunt, then he compared atheism to fundamentalist religion. Full retard.”
I didn’t compare atheism to fundamentalist religion.
I compared a very niche minority of fundamentalists who say they are atheists, to fundamentalist religion.
Massive difference.
Thanks though for doing to me what you are constantly crying we do to Sam Harris. Misrepresenting me.
Talk about grossly missing the point. I don’t have a problem with atheism, seeing as how it’s a LACK of belief. However, don’t confuse that with the “New Atheists” (a label I’ve heard from others, including TYT before of course) to describe fundies like Sam Harris.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
I want to start out by sharing my amusement of you being a Harris hater, then distinguishing between ” (a) very niche minority of fundamentalists who say they are atheists, to fundamentalist religion. ” followed up with the words “Massive difference.”
Can you see how your argument there is very Harris like and how funny it would be for me to scream. “RONNY IS RACIST AGAINST ATHEISTS!!!!”? I hope so because that is delicious.
Anyway, you made my point in your rebuttal to my original point. You compared fundamental religious people to atheists who were lucky enough to have best selling books thus making them in your mind “fundamentalist atheists”
You are an imbecile of low intellectual capacity, ronnyrulez.
Hell ya Cenk! A nuclear attack isn’t a fucking maybe!!!! END THE VIOLENCE!!!!
The Sam Harris segment started to sound like Louie CK’s Of course, but maybe joke
This video on roots of Islamic Fundamentalism is good, because it shows the roots of the issue. But why Cenk is in denial that USA has used right-wing/neo-Nazis (for like 28 regimes worldwide, as Salon counted) for the same reason they use Wahhabi/Salafist terrorism? USA-backed bloody coup in Ukraine last year has brought regime where the country banned communist party, burnt their offices, regularly holds torch marches, has thousands of political prisoners, has slogan “Ukraine above all” (see “Hitler uber alles”), “Death to our enemies”? This regime has criminally ordered to move the army to the Eastern Ukraine to subjugate people of the area to their illegal power.
The bomb was used against Japan for far less rational reasoning especially in the face of pending surrender.
Jump forward to 1947 and beyond in Pakistan and India. They both have nuclear arms and it could be a matter of time before the stand-off devolves to the point that mutual destruction and the widespread fallout to the rest of the world occurs.
Putting forth a what if scenario of how world leaders/powermongers could react, be they “rational” or “terroristic” in intent, is just as Harris often points out a “thought experiment”. Just the mere idea that Iraq had any sort of nuclear capability was enough of a smokescreen to do what the Bush administration put forth in destabilizing the area. Imagine how an actual nuclear threat in that situation may have been responded to by the US.
Cenk just keeps putting too much stock in how Sam Harris contributes to actual real world affairs over what are at the end of the day very real and often talked about philosphical viewpoints associated with nuclear weapons. Just going by Sam Harris on Youtube his highest viewed count on a video is 33,077 views. I would hardly call that changing and influencing the minds of the world let alone even a small town worth of people. Sam Harris is only as popular as he is mostly due to how he one of the few widely acknowledged atheists of which the spectrum is large so none of that all or nothing BS Cenk holds fast to, even Dawkins isn’t a perfect 10.0 atheist by his own admission. What Harris does most is to make people think about more topics than they ever would if they just slog through their day. I would like to know who was the one that brought up the Harris podcast for inclusion in the show in the first place. Relying on a secondhand accound of most of what Harris puts forth is truly a lesson in paying attention to the whole conversation instead of just pulling a quote here and there as he tends to spread the thought out much further than a single paragraph worth of ideas.
In the end I leave it to the words of a great philosopher for all parties involved: “Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” — The Dude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqxlzHJrU0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWJfdRpHWuk
Be honest you didn’t even try to look. This video has 1.25 million views.
I am aware of his various videos posted by other sources but that has nothing to do with my posted comments regarding the podcast Cenk references. I was referring to those directly posted by Harris himself, on his own YouTube page..
He’s got a website too, but the real question is, are you arguing the ad populum fallacy?
Also, Harris speaks to universities, academic conferences, journalists, and legislative members. Who has more influence, him or Cenk with 50% of his audience out of the country? Also, Cenk’s credibility took a big hit in October 2014 when he started all this shit with Harris and since then showed he his dishonest and loudly doesn’t understand probability theory. This all hurts him.
Ya on his website his podcasts actually get reliably 200K+ views too and his podcast can be found in multiple locations so the number is likely much higher. Which is impressive for the work of one man.
As above, I am aware of the body of Sam Harris works/public commentary and would be hard pressed not to have gone through the vast majority of it. I didn’t want to do a breakdown of all content available because that is beside the point I was trying to make. My original post was about Cenk’s reply to the content of that one specific podcast (Maintenance) after listening to it numerous times. For myself, most of what Cenk rails against in his talking points in the segment come off as a secondhand account over an actual informed commentary on it. That is why I would still be interested in who brought the podcast content up at the daily TYT production meeting for inclusion in the show. Somehow I feel Cenk didn’t do the legwork or at the least he didn’t even listen to it as opposed to injecting his own thoughts in to the talking points they decided to use. Once much of what Cenk presented here (this hours segment) is compared to the podcast (Maintenance) as a whole, I am inclined to believe it is the latter as Cenk was probably too busy to sit and listen intently to the complete podcast. Enter the usual Cenk dropping the “Harris is being misreprented boohoo” line which in many cases is a childish response due to missing the nuance in the bigger framing Harris tends to use in the majority of his material. Cenk like many others isn’t seeing the trees for the forest (yes I mean it in that reverse way), when they should probably be doing the opposite given the material. in question.
just felt I’d reply here too, his podcasts on his website receive 200K+ views
For the love of god, can Cenk shut the hell up about Sam Harris? I seriously don’t care how much Cenk hates him. Sam Harris is basically a pundit, and TYT doesn’t comment on any other pundits that aren’t mainstream news commentators. For the love of fuck please just put a ban on Harris like you guys had on Trump and Coulter, because I have no interest in listening to what amount to rambling hater rants on TYT. This is supposed to be news, and this shit isn’t news.
The growing trend towards Islamophobia and fascism is absolutely news. The US is sounding more and more on a daily basis like Germany in the 1930’s. Bigot opportunists like Sam Harris owe all of their fame to Islamophobia masquerading as atheism. This is a very very dangerous trend, and people who follow TYT, including many members who comment here, have fallen into his trap. He’s just someone who wants to be famous, but his army of online cult followers are persuaded by his nonsense to hate Muslims AND they learn to justify it as simple logical atheism. Outright anti-Muslim bigotry is harder to get away with, even when the corporate press which takes its marching orders for the dictates of US empire will bend over backwards to support you, the general public is still reticent to be openly and directly bigoted towards an entire group.. Sam Harris is so dangerous, because it takes the natural xenophobic tendency that has been a large component of American life since the beginning and sells the message in a safe, atheistic package.
So is it news? Is it worth discussing? You could argue that there’s little that’s more important for TYT to be discussing.
I 100% Agree!
^this
as usual, perfectly argued & worded by gathly :)
You will never understand this debate because all you do is close your eyes and cover yours ears and scream labels and insults. You do the theocrats job for them, instead of advocate to open closed societies you back the dictators in their efforts to close them based on religious justifications.
What are you talking about man? I don’t hurl insults… and I would never back a dictator, but I wouldn’t invade a country to topple a dictator either. Remember, I’m an atheist, i dislike Islam as much as every other religion, in fact I think it even has cultist aspects to it that all religions have to ensure they keep their power (in the Koran, about putting god and Muhammad before your kids etc).
But you guys take it a step further, that where i vehemently disagree with you. You say these people are terrible human beings (most muslims) on the basis of polls that I have proven are wrong (did you read that post of mine I mentioned from the following address:
tytnetwork.com/2015/10/15/young-turks-oct-14-2015/
Yes, your polls are wrong!
post is at end of our last (2nd) thread, scroll to end of page.
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Idk how many times Harris has to say he’s not talking about all muslims but the ideas, and I have never said once that I hate all muslims either.
That’s such a sad tactic to shut down people who you are afraid to listen to. My father came from the muslim world in Afghanistan, and he had a muslim family and grew up with that shit. He criticizes the religion too, he hated what it did to his country and how it made them live. He isn’t a Muslim nor was he ever really when he lived there. Grow up and stop putting words in peoples mouths just to slime them. If you calmed down you would see that what I’m supporting the secular liberal and moderate muslims around the world and you are hurting them.
And the secular liberal moderate muslims around the world are on my side and not yours. They want to live in a secular tolerant world but people like you tell them that’s bigotry and that they should live in their authoritarian oppressed world because to criticize it would be racist. Do you understand finally?
But I clearly said you guys demean the character of “most muslims” not “all muslims” and you’re trying to say I said “all muslims” – why do that? It’s not cool.
If the above was all that you were saying, I would agree with you. From the Gallup poll (which totally contradicts the PEW POLL I discredited in the quoted post) it clearly says that muslims with radical opinions (ie: saying that 9/11 was justified) is 7% – that’s right, 7%, not more or less.
These aren’t people who are willing to attack or do terrorism, but just people who are sympathetic about it. Why isn’t 7% enough? You can critisize the 7% all you want and I will even back you in that, but you guys (harris, maher, not you necessarily) try to say the radicals are about 60% and sam harris says it’s 20% in the ben affleck/maher debate while also saying that 20% is actually a conservative figure and that it’s likely to be more.
If you were happy with 7% we can both be on the same side here, but I get the feeling that you want it to be more or higher, correct me if I’m wrong. If you keep learning from polls that have only 2 answer options, as I wrote about in the post i referenced, you’ll only lead to incorrect answers since in a yes/no situation if you’re answer isn’t strictly yes or no, then you are going to answer incorrectly no matter what you choose! People are still quoting and learning from flawed polls where only a binary answer option is given despite there being nuanced positions that are ignored in the yes/no setup. This leads to brainwashing and harris or maher isn’t even wise to it, they don’t understand the polls they are quoting and never mention the gallup polls which totally contradict the other polls.
I think this is hard for you to understand so I’m just going to make it very simple. Put training wheels on it if you will. The less said, the harder it will be for you to change what I say into what you want to think I’m saying. My goal is not to demean ‘most muslims’. The problem is not ‘all’ muslims but the problem is indeed the ideas of Islam, and the overall problem is religious dogmatism and dogmatism in any respect. Being closed to reason is dangerous and you prove that every day.
You also need to focus on more than just those who sympathize with terrorism, the ideology is responsible for the oppression of women in the muslim world, if there was any one thing we could do to progress humanity for the better it would be to empower women in these theocracies by combating intolerant ideas where we find them.
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Idk how many times Harris has to say he’s not talking about the muslim people as a whole, and I have never said once that I hate all muslims. That’s such a sad tactic to shut down people who you are afraid to listen to. My fathers came from the muslim world in Afghanistant, had a muslim family and grew up with that shit. He criticizes the religion too, he hated what it did to his country. He isn’t a Muslim nor was he ever really when he lived there. Grow up and stop putting words in peoples mouths just to slime them. If you calmed down you would see that what I’m supporting the secular liberal and moderate muslims around the world more than you.
And the secular liberal moderate muslims around the world are on my side and not yours. They want to live in a secular tolerant world but people like you tell them thats bigotry and that they should live in their authoritarian oppressed world because to criticize it would be racist. Do you understand finally?
As usual, slanderous bull that you repeat as desperately as Cenk. You will never understand this debate because all you do is close your eyes and cover yours ears and scream labels and insults. You do the theocrats job for them, instead of advocate to open closed societies you back the dictators in their efforts to close them based on religious justifications. The real fight is with religious authoritarian conservatism and yet regressive liberals label those who speak out against such ideas as racist. It’s rather sad how similar it is to how the far right treats people. Rather than listen to ideas, they choose just label those they disagree and close their mind to rational discussion.
Wow, It’s absolutely amazing how sensitive Sam Harris’ followers are these days.
One strong argument to suggest Sam Harris is full of shit, and he flips out in absolute rage & endless QQ spam.
Dude, we get it. You get your feelings hurt anytime anyone bashes the object of your affection. Chill the fuck out. You aren’t Sam Harris. An argument against him is not an attack on your very being.
My feelings are quite alright, I just look at the Cenk Sam interview comments and I’m reminded not everyone is like you. I think Cenk is wrong and I happily state my opinion.
I think this is hard for you to understand so I’m just going to make it very simple. Put training wheels on it if you will. The less said, the harder it will be for you to change what I say into what you want to think I’m saying. My goal is not to demean ‘most muslims’. The problem is not ‘all’ muslims but the problem is indeed the ideas of Islam, and the overall problem is religious dogmatism and dogmatism in any respect. Being closed to reason
You also need to focus on more than just those who sympathize with terrorism, the ideology is responsible for the oppression of women in the muslim world, if there was any one thing we could do to progress humanity for the better it would be to empower women in these theocracies by combating intolerant ideas where we find them.
Your feelings are gushing everywhere. You just rationalize it with so much cognitive bias that you convince yourself through logic that your emotions are reason.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen to your mind if you actually realized the truth: You are the very enemy you so vehemently oppose.
Perhaps your ego is so weak, it is incapable of even comprehending this as a possibility. This denies your mind the absolute necessity for reasonable thought: Critical Thinking. Without that Critical Thinking, you are forever tricked into falling repeatedly into that incredibly heavy vat of ooze consisting of irony, hypocrisy, and fundamentalism.
You are a walking, talking, shitting case of projection.
100% insults without proving a goddamn thing. I’ve read every link ever sent to me on this member comment section. Have you?
Cunt.
I talk about empowering women by criticizing bad ideas and this is the kind of conversation we get? I’ll just restate what I said since I know you didn’t read it.
“You also need to focus on more than just those who sympathize with terrorism, the ideology is responsible for the oppression of women (gays, secularists, etc) in the muslim world, if there was any one thing we could do to progress humanity for the better it would be to empower women in these theocracies by combating intolerant ideas where we find them.”
And from all that you got ‘your ego is weak, you can’t critically think, your too emotional, your the enemy who can’t see the truth.’
Sums up the attitude of the regressive left perfectly. Don’t actually respond to the ideas and words of others, simply slime those you disagree with as being the enemy and not a conversation partner. Thanks for making it clearer ronny.
The very fact that Harris supports Carson over Chomsky is proof that he is fundamentally much more than anti-Muslim bigot than atheist. So his whole fame as atheist is fake
Nice one my friend :)… I wanted to say props to you for not being a bigot or muslim hater, I know Russians dont’ get along with the chechens and you’ve been able to put aside emotions in favor of logic, unlike sam harris, bill maher & dave ruben (who are all half or full jewish)
Russians already mostly get along with Chechens, because Chechens have suffered from Wahhabi/Salafist terrorism themselves. By late 1990s they were in de-facto independent enclave, but they were ruled by imported Saudi Wahhabi/Salafist warlords. Chechens found out that those maniacs did not care about Chechen people al all, they just used and abused the territory as platform to create regional “Caliphate”, and to set up expansionist attacks on neighbouring regions to the peril of the people.
It was similar to what has happened to “liberated” (according to Western MSM) Idlib province in Syria now, where the only life career people’s daughters have is to become black garbage bags (both literally and figuratively, because this is how it looks, and this is how women are treated), and the best life career for sons is to become suicide bombers.
Chechens found out that they hate to be ruled like that, and that however much they wanted independence earlier, the reality was not it. So big part of local rebels has made a deal with Putin to overthrow local heads-chopping Salafist/Wahhabi tyranny, to oust Saudi warlords, and to rule themselves under support and protection of Russia. Now those Chechens are the most loyal to the federal government, because they have seen what terrorist ideology has done to them in the region.
Russia has tens of millions of Muslims (almost all of them Sunni), and cares for its mostly Muslim regions well and with respect. It is not because Putin is angel (he is right on international policy, but he is corrupt cynical politician otherwise), but because if Russia will not be good to those republics, the country will fall apart. Of course, Russia has a lot of bigots, and some fundamentalist Christians who hate Muslims, as well as neo-Nazis, but they do not have platform as the government bans hate speech (just like France and Germany).
Even though I am personally agnostic atheist and would prefer religions to not exist in the first place, I respect all moderate teachings of all major religions, as they preach goodness, and I am against persecuting any of them because of extremists.
Samuel’s rhetoric, alas, goes far beyond “though experiments”, and is used by far less “sophisticated” actors to justify basically neo-Nazist positions and policies.
yes, i totally agree on your points, especially the last two paragraphs.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
No, he will not shut up and he will call that racist bigot out every time he can, and I totally support him in doing so because people like that need to be called out. they are responsible for the hate crimes being committed against muslims right now. be proud of your work, you’ve succeeded, congratulate yourself. your hate crimes are working their magic now. innocent Muslim women are being beaten up by hateful white men in the west.
Still LMFAO at Sam Harris supporting Ben Carson over Chomsky, LMFAO LOL
Cenk seems bitter to be honest, like he sort of can’t understand why all his Sam Harris content get continuously panned by his own audience.
I 100% agree. He seems unwilling to understand anything Sam Harris is saying and as usual resorts to ad hominem attacks.
Did you guys ever think, maybe you may have misunderstood something? I’ve tried to think that maybe I have, i really gave sam harris a fair shot from the beginning. not the very first day but some days later, but it because obvious that he was speaking rubbish and out of emotional bias. I know you think he is emotionally biased but that he is also correct on some of the issues, but that coincidence doesn’t exist… it’s not a coincidence that he has all these views and that some might be right… they all are enforced by his emotions, and he tries, to the best of his ability, to use logic to argue for his emotions. it ain’t a coincidence man.
Dude you just described Cenk lol. You know you can think what you want right? You don’t have to agree with everything someone says just because you like them. Something you can’t seem to understand as you happen to think I am the reincarnation of Sam Harris.
You’ve also never given any real arguments. You just pivot and talk about US foreign policy like nothing existed before the US. I’m slightly embarrassed the left has turned into clowns like you so sure of themselves. I have responded to all the points you think you have made and you simply get more animated instead of more intelligible.
Me getting more animated and clownish huh? I haven’t insulted you yet & have no intention to, but when you start insulting instead of arguing it shows that you feel like you’re trapped in a corner.
If you want to not talk about points or issues and would rather use scientific polls and data to make arguments, i would be 100% in agreement with that. Instead of just making emotionally charged statements lets just use polls, data and science to answer the questions, if a statement can’t be backed by data, there is no point. Because otherwise we will just keep siting various scenario’s and trying to argue that this is connected to that, and that is connected to this, because it seems or feels logical – this method in itself is flawed, we can only use data and science to make those connection, for every connection… only when we do that can be truly decipher reality.
So, if you want to increase the standards for evidence, lets do that. And you can only discredit evidence with other evidence. Deal?
Explain to me then, what motivates people to riot over cartoons? What motivates men to institutionally oppress women? What motivates christians to hate gays? What motivated the slave trade? What motivates the killing of homosexuals, free thinkers, and apostates though out the ME? What motivates honor killing? What motivates throwing acid on a woman’s face for being dishonorable? What motivates murdering 130 school children and then claiming they are in paradise and wouldn’t come back if they could? What motivates one man to strap a bomb on his chest, go to his place of worship and explode himself along with those who believed as he did? What motivates a man to give up a comfortable life to instead fly a plane into a building full of people?
Reeeeeeeliigion. I have made a million points with you, you just constantly cite amnesty international, you claim pew polls (which I never site) are all wrong and you pivot away from every example of atrocities inspired by Islam and claim it is all the fault of the US.
Kind of like how Cenk did recently, I love the old School with Wes because he obviously falls on my side of this debate. Cenk claimed the CIA is soley responsible for radicalizing the region supporting the radicals to fight the communists and Wes said ‘you know at some point you have to fucking take responsibility’ indicating that the radicals on the ground are just as much responsible for their actions even if the US enabled them.
This is something you seem to also gloss over every time I make this point. I am not in favor of hawkish foreign policy and I clearly recognize the role such policies have played in fucking up the Middle East but don’t go off the deep end thinking these people are exactly like us. This is a point even Wes made, if they were a culture full of Germans then we could rebuild it but they aren’t that kind of culture.
We spend billions of dollars rebuilding roads in Iraq and Afghanistan and those cultures don’t even notice and if they do certainly some will like hour investment but most will be bitter and think it’s not enough. Cenk wants to flood these regions with even more money but again Wes made a great point when he said ‘dude the Saudi’s have been flooding money into mosques the second they had the chance in the 60’s’.
The religious theocrats would simply take all the money to radicalize the people even more UNLESS you reform the core ideology into something tolerant and compatible with secularism. Cenk seems to think if you just flood them with money and porn they will like us and like us but I don’t think just giving them stuff is going to change any minds in any real way.
I think you need to encourage secular conversations in theocracies, allow people to spread the message without calling them a racist for criticizing islam. Temper authoritarian ideologues. I don’t think you win by pretending your enemies are your allies, I think you win by persuading your enemies who are reasonable and defeating those who are not.
Here, since I am not Sam Harris, I will let you read Sam’s actual words.
Sam harris salon article
“One doesn’t have to be a bigot to see shari’ah as a problem. In fact, it’s impossible to be a true liberal without seeing shari’ah as a problem. It’s impossible to be a true liberal and not acknowledge that one has to be very unlucky indeed to born a girl in almost any Muslim-majority country. And this is an injustice that liberals should be the first to care about. Just because you were born a woman in Afghanistan, you shouldn’t be condemned to live like a slave. There’s not a shred of bigotry behind observations of this kind. On the contrary, it’s the bigotry of low expectations that allows white, privileged secularists to imagine that a majority of woman and girls forced to wear the veil probably enjoy it.”
Maybe we can make this a regular segment in the comments. Instead of just sliming Sam Harris, how bout we all read his words together as a community. Because Knowledge is Power! :)
I read it, here are the problems. He is assuming a women born in a muslim majority country is automatically a slave, this is crazy. He then suggests that they are forced to wear the veil, this is also not true. Are there situation where they are? I’m sure it exists, but the vast majority of them choose to wear it because it is part of their religion and this is how they interface with their religion. Also they see other women & friends wear it and they choose to wear it to fit in so to speak. Harris is just going way overboard.
And I know bill maher would say (because he has) “Ah, if they are wearing it because of their religion that is still forced because their religion forces them to” – this is a silly argument because when maher was making this point he was trying to equate this with husbands forcing their wives to wear a veil and that it is the same thing. It isn’t! Even if they are brainwashed by their religion to wear it, it’s still their choice, because they adhere to the scripture. It’s like saying christian nuns who wear the scarf, that they are forced to wear it because their religion forces them. Really, their religion brainwashes them, it’s still their choice what they do, no one is pointing a gun to their heads, because it’s their choice how religious they want to become.
This is the problem with sam, it’s emotional for him. His emotions feed his opinions and he tries to justify the emotional biases and feelings of resentment he has towards muslims (stemming from the israel/palestine issue) and although he uses logic to make the case, when his starting points are flawed, using logic to tie those items together will not work, because for logic to work the entire chain of the logic needs to be sound. You can’t be illogical about one item in the chain and be logical about the rest and expect the logic to work. It’s a pity, because harris is an intelligent guy, it’s always a pity to see intelligent people who are so co-opted by their emotional biases that they end up sounding stupid and on the wrong side of history.
There incorrect starting points in the quotes harris paragraph above would be the insinuation that all or most female muslims are slaves and that they are forced to wear veils by their masters. This is just a grotesque distortion. Notice how he isn’t using science or data to backup this point, just empty, hollow words never backed with sound evidence because the evidence doesn’t exist.
Saying women like wearing black bags is like saying prostitutes like to suck dick and give the money to their pimp. It’s like a slave saying he likes his chains. Even Cenk doesn’t agree with you on that. You just do the theocrats job for them by pretending women like to be oppressed.
“Saying women like wearing black bags”
Have you ever met a free muslim woman?
I’ve actually dated one, and her desire to wear a “black bags” once she was married was one of the sweetest displays of affection I had ever seen as a young person.
I can only assume you, just like the vast majority of Sam Harris followers, are extremely ignorant on the muslim religion, muslim culture, and muslim women in general. After all, you support a nuclear first strike as a “maybe”.
Did it ever occur to you that wearing “black bags” around their faces and covering their bodies can actually be a personal decision a muslim woman makes when given the freedom to do whatever they want? That it isn’t because of some sexist desire for male dominance or because they are so marginalized that they don’t realize they don’t actually want it.
Did it ever occur to you that it’s the literal equivalent of a wife deciding to wear a certain shade of lipstick because her husband loves it or a husband who grows a beard because his wife loves it on him?
The problem is when women don’t have the freedom to choice what they want. That is an issue. The problem isn’t their taste, culture, and whether or not they “like wearing black bags”.
Did it ever occur to you that (it can be) the literal equivalent of …
Corrected that.
TLDR: You are ignorant of other people’s cultures, so you are willing to allow the thought experiment of a nuclear first strike as a ‘maybe’. You’ve done a great job on the “good person” department.
FUCK their culture. Western society is FAR SUPERIOR.
“I’ve actually dated one, and her desire to wear a “black bags” once she was married was one of the sweetest displays of affection I had ever seen as a young person.”
-ronneyrulez
What the fuck?
Well fucking said, Yamo. eaxx is absolutely doing the theocrats jobs for them. Women like to wear bags, yeah.
Of course you’re confused Gryphon87.
Why would a ignorant Islamophobe asshole such as yourself grasp even the possibility that in another culture it can be considered romantic?
No wonder you’re a Harris follower.
Are you also a tea bag republican nut too? Would not surprise me in the slightest.
“Why would a ignorant Islamophobe asshole such as yourself grasp even the possibility that in another culture it (being forced into a bag) can be considered romantic?”
-ronneyrulez
Disgusting.
And by the way, so Ironic for you to say Sam is the emotional one, dude is like meditating all the time lol Cenk is screaming is lights out about Sam, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sam get worked up about Cenk ever. His interview with Kyle is like the most animated he’s ever been and even there he was more articulate than Cenk has ever been.
“And by the way, so Ironic for you to say Sam is the emotional one, dude is like meditating all the time lol Cenk is screaming is lights out about Sam, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sam get worked up about Cenk ever. ”
It’s simply amazing how easily you are fooled by such shallow things.
You are the exact same type of mindset that hears Ben Carson speak and assumes he is an extremely nice, respectful person. I mean, he is so soft-spoken, there’s no way he supports cruel, merciless, destructive policy.
Yet Bernie Sanders? OMG HE IS ALWAYS SCREAMING! He must be some kind of Satanist.
TIL: Yamo87 is so easily fooled by shallow appearances that if he were a republican, he would think Ben Carson was a Saint-Genius and Bernie Sanders was a raving Hitler.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
lol you went on a random tangent that had nothing to do with my claim. You said Sam Harris was emotional, I pointed out Cenk was obviously more emotional, and then you go off on me supporting people who are less emotional? HAHAHAHAHA No I was just debunking your claim that sam was being emotional. But go ahead and make random points that have nothing to do with anything.
Thanks for trying to educate this troll named Yamo86.
We appreciate the effort. Unfortunately, there is no talking to such a close minded religious fundamentalist.
He is a simple minded person who was never taught Critical Thinking. He is gullible, easily tricked by Sam Harris’ charms. Unless you can charm him or appeal to his hatred for muslims, there is probably no chance of reaching him. He has to come to his own revelation and then come to people like you for answers, being first open to changing his mind.
Perhaps one day he will actually meet a Muslim and get to know them. Maybe it will be a woman, and maybe they will teach him how ignorant he is. Maybe that will be the catalyst to open his eyes to how he was tricked by Sam Harris. Maybe he will die a racist bigot or not realize the error of his ways until the nuclear apocalypse.
Either way, thanks for trying. Just don’t spend too much time or frustration talking to these trolls.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
Lemme guess, Cenk and all of us are simply misrepresenting Sam Harris. That link shows what he really thinks, although he still thinks exactly what Cenk quoted him on (but THAT is misrepresenting him!)
It’s yamo87, and my father is from afghanistan and I’ve known muslims all my life and the less they believe all stuff the better and less judgmental they tend to be.
the less they believe all that stuff the less judgmental and more open they tend to be.
Dude, don’t waste your time.
These clueless fools are so deep in the spider’s web that they will never believe anything other than the idea that Cenk is misrepresenting Sam Harris yet again.”
“You’re miss representing me!”
“You’re miss representing me!”
“You’re miss representing me!”
“You’re miss representing me!”
Just like Ann Coulter, Sam Harris has trapped these simple minds in his web. Since they are incapable or fail to grasp how to use critical thinking, they are forever trapped.
*”You’re misrepresenting me!”
No idea how I made that typo, lol
Retardation.
lmao
While I understand your ego can’t handle even contemplating the idea that you are the epitome of what you claim to be against, I have to wonder…
There is absolutely no way you can deny this fact:
Emotionally-driven people respond to every comment and go out of there way to find any post they can to exert insults.
Insults & Laughter are very emotional responses no matter how you cut it.
So your ego cannot deny that you are emotionally driven, which is heavy evidence to suggest everyone is right in analyzing you as an unreasonable religious fundie / typical Harris follower.
So what I’m interested in is…how do you exist? How do you sleep at night? We all know the truth, including you. It has to at some level, even if only subconsciously, eat at you inside. Is that why you troll, insult, and prowl so readily for posts you can reply to? Is this your subconscious manifestation of the fact you simultaneously know the truth but also don’t want to believe it?
I am just curious. You can rationalize plenty of things, but things like excessive trolling is without a doubt heavily emotional. There is no way you rationalize this. Denial has to replace rationalization, which makes sense given the heaviness of your emotion in responses.
By denying your emotion, your emotion consumes you. I just am curious how MUCH you know it. If you’re at all consciously aware, which I assume you are, or if you’re in such deep denial that you don’t even see the similarities to you and religious fundamentalists, conservative right-wing nuts, and groups like ISIS, etc.
You have spent so much time name calling, distorting and crying you could have actually spent that whole time actually listening to Sam’s point of view instead of lying about what other people want constantly.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
Dishonesty is not a virtue.
I already mocked your attempts at psycho analysis and mind reading, so I’ll post what this comment of yours first brought to my mind:
Fear is the path to the dark side.
Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.
-Yoda
I truly hope that you feel relieved by lowering yourself to name-calling and mudslinging. Name-calling is the sign of a weak argument and like our friend Cenk likes to say, “get out of here with that weak sauce!”
I can only assume you meant this comment to be directed at someone other than me. I neither used name-calling nor ‘mudslinging’ in that post.
If you are so childish that you perceive the usage of “fool” and the idea that “simple-minded individuals are easily tricked” are both heavy-handed insults and “mudslinging”, then perhaps you are not a good fit for any form of intellectual conversation.
You have to be at least somewhat less sensitive than one of those religious nuts who scream bloody murder at the showing of a bare shoulder or bra strap.
I mean…seriously dude? You’re crying that I used the word “fool” and “simple-mind” to describe someone who is easily tricked by what should be obvious?
Can you please explain to me what is so complex about such simple-minded conclusions as “All Muslims = Bad Guys because <0.1% Muslims = Terrorists"? What is NOT foolish about falling prey to such obvious tricks? What is NOT childish about posting direct insults in response to every post they can?
It was directed at you. Because you seem to be confused about your own positions as you are all over the place, you are attacking commenters more than making any points.
http://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/on-the-maintenance-of-civilization
“Can you please explain to me what is so complex about such simple-minded conclusions as “All Muslims = Bad Guys because <0.1% Muslims = Terrorists"? What is NOT foolish about falling prey to such obvious tricks? What is NOT childish about posting direct insults in response to every post they can?"
This is a straw man argument if I have ever seen one! No one ever suggested any such thing. If I did believe all Muslims were bad people because a small minority engaged in terrorism then I would indeed be a "fool" and "simple-minded". I'm hard-pressed to find your less than 0.1% number in any reputable polling organization so I'll assume, for the time being, that you pulled it out of your posterior just like your dishonest and slanderous argument.
Unfortunately, you're blinded by liberal dogma that requires you to believe all ideas and theologies are equal and pointing out that some are incompatible with liberal policies and western systems of government is taboo. You're more than happy to criticize the cake maker who refuses a gay couple because he's a christian but god forbid we mention that the practices in Muslim theocracies run contrary to progressive ideals and all of a sudden we don't know any Muslims, we're ignorant of their culture or we're cultural supremacists. In a Muslim theocracy, for example, your wholehearted defense of say Buddhism wouldn't be tolerated and would probably result in a jail sentence or a public lashing. I would venture out and say that's probably not something you would enjoy.
If you actually read what Sam has written and could actually look beyond your knee-jerk reaction you would see it's about creating space for liberal voices and ideas in conservative Muslim theocracies. Remember, these theocracies run contrary to almost everything you believe in or at least pretend to believe in. You'd be surprised how many young liberals voices exist in theses countries that want to live free and prosperous lives without mullahs and imams telling them how to conduct their personal lives. If you actually read up on this topic you wouldn't have made that asinine comment about how Muslim women in these countries actually "make" decisions on what they wear. Countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, just to name a few, have a strict dress code enforced by a religious police. Even in Muslim countries that don't have a strict dress code, it is enforced through strict familial and societal pressures.
If you take that to mean all Muslims are bad or that we're at war with Muslims then you're incapable of understanding basic logic and nuance. Being critical of bad ideas doesn't make one an Islamophobe or clueless. At this point all I can say is read the links provided by Yamo87 and maybe you'll see why you and Cenk are actually misrepresenting what Sam has so extensively written about.
Beautifully worded! You must save it and spread that sexy logic.
So your idiotic argument is the same as always I see?
Cenk is just misrepresenting Sam Harris.
“You’re misrepresenting me!”
“You’re misrepresenting me!”
“You’re misrepresenting me!”
“You’re misrepresenting me!”
lol well, he does it constantly so he should be called out for being an asshole
Yep. Cenk is always misrepresenting Sam Harris.
Don’t you find it even the tiniest bit strange that every single one of his critics just grossly misrepresent him? Talk about bad luck, right?
Sam Harris is the Bill Cosby of accusations.
So grossly misrepresented by so many people, yet obviously innocent of all those accusations!