>> ^budzos:
Yes, for fuck's sake. And not this medical marijuana bullshit nonsense. Marijuana should be as legal as tomatoes. The concept of a plant being illegal is insane to me.


Your comment made me think of the vast number of poisonous plants that aren't illegal, plants like buttercups, bracken, St John's Wort, yew trees, rhododendron bushes, privet hedges, all of these are highly toxic and yet are perfectly legal to grow, in fact are very commmonplace. I'm only scratching the surface here. Oh - a good example would be poppies, perfectly legal to grow, definitely poisonous, and can be harvested for opiates (although as far as I know it's the processing of the opiates that is illegal in most countries).

Marijuana isn't toxic, no more harmful than alcohol, and has been shown to offer benefits for both physical and mental illnesses. It's even been shown to help people become more aligned with what is referred to by psychologists as 'neural neutral' - i.e. normal.

Also, what about when a pot-hole isn't a perfect container - life where one side busts out into a hedge or something...

I agree to some degree with that. TYT are blowhards. That's sorta the problem with the financial meltdown. Now everyone is looking at the financial system and making prescriptions on how to fix it, even those who don't understand the system.

>> ^lampishthing:

Maybe. I'd nonetheless like to see a breakdown before freaking out about it. Maybe they're all interest rate swaps and the 44 trillion is counting notionals. Saying 44 trillion without further details doesn't really mean that much and TYT are just being reactionary about a large number.>> ^heropsycho:
If we learned anything from AIG, the answer is probably so much in overleveraged securities and credit default swaps it doesn't matter.
>> ^lampishthing:
But how much of it is hedged?

Maybe. I'd nonetheless like to see a breakdown before freaking out about it. Maybe they're all interest rate swaps and the 44 trillion is counting notionals. Saying 44 trillion without further details doesn't really mean that much and TYT are just being reactionary about a large number.>> ^heropsycho:

If we learned anything from AIG, the answer is probably so much in overleveraged securities and credit default swaps it doesn't matter.
>> ^lampishthing:
But how much of it is hedged?

If we learned anything from AIG, the answer is probably so much in overleveraged securities and credit default swaps it doesn't matter.

>> ^lampishthing:

But how much of it is hedged?

But how much of it is hedged?

I have been a fan of Hedges' work for awhile now, but lately, I've been losing his thread...

The woman at the end of this clip -- who I remember from her interview with Keith Olberman -- is the reason for my upvote.

@shinyblurry But I found the real struggle was to objectively define truth. Any foundational truth, really. What is beauty? What is altruism? What is truth itself? 7 billion subjective perspectives does not equal one objective one.

Well, as you say, our understanding is limited, and we may neveer truly figure it out, but from my pespective, if anything could ever be seen as objectively true, that would have to be science. Compare science to religion, there are thousands of religions, all claiming to see some deeper truth in the universe, but there is just one science. There is no such thing as "Japanese science" or "American Science" or "Middle eastern science" The first law of thermodynamics isnt different in Germany og Guatamala, and if we ever make contact with an alien race on the other side of the universe capable of science, they will have discovered the same law. Theyll also discover that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared and so forth. Compare that to religion: As soon as two tribes are separated by a mountain or a lake, their religious "truths" will start to diverge.

Or, maybe we're wrong, maybe, despite being independently confirmed over and over in different parts of the world and even in the farthest stretches of the universe, the laws of physics and logically sound facts derived from science is all wrong, maybe there is some other, unknown objective truth waiting to be discovered. Still one thing seems glaringly obvious: Christianity seems to be as far from an objective truth as one can get. Even Christians can't agree on it. There are something like 30 thousand recognized branches of Christianity, and when taken at the level of an individual, the picture is even worse. Almost every christian seems to have a different idea about whats really true about Christianity.

So, if I had to hedge my bets on how we can find objective truths: Science.

@ghark

Paragraph 1:

1. The difference between collateral damage and terrorism is easy to assess. Intentions, methods, and actions of the bombers of 9/11 and the allied forces are different. Does that make civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan less tragic? No. Do we have to understand the ripple effect of those lost innocent lives? Yes. If an allied soldier killed my family I probably would not care why they did it - accident or not - and I would probably want to seek revenge. Thus the viscious cycle that armed conflict perpetuates.


However, to call allied soldiers terrorist is completely out of line.

2. I'm not defining terrorist as a muslim with a beard.

As George Carlin said, "You have to be realistic about terrorism. Certain groups of people, certain groups, Muslim fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists, and just plain guys from Montana, are going to continue to make life in this country very interesting for a long, long time."

What George is pointing out, and I believe Sam to agree with, is that people with bad ideas are bad no matter where they are from.


Or from wikipedia: "Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion."

Paragraph 2 - Harris Fear Mongering, Generalizing:

1. How is Harris fear mongering? He is stating simple facts about the reality of a nuclear attack on US soil. He did not inflate those numbers or misrepresent them.

2.You can say things like "blatant generalizations" but you are not giving any real concrete examples.

Paragraph 3 - Hedges:

1. Aside from some debates I have seen Hedges in I have very little knowledge of his work. I can't comment on it because I have not read it.

Paragraph 4 - Self Gratification?


1. I fail to see how Harris mention of a possible nuclear attack on the United States, or anywhere, is an example of self gratification. I do not think this statistic brings Sam any pleasure at all.

Nuclear Attack a Ticking Time Bomb

Now for the Rip.


You admit you didn't listen to the video in its entirety which means you didn't give Sam a chance to fully develop his ideas. I don't know exactly what you expect from him or any other speaker, but they can only get so many words out of their mouth at one time and they cannot cover every objection. From what I have read and heard from Sam in the past I know him to be a fairly reasonable person - so I give him some leeway.

It reminds me of a fellow student in one of my literature classes in college. He opened his mouth and said," Well, I did not have a chance to read the story, but from what I'm hearing in the discussion I think..."


The Professor stopped him right there. He had no right to spend my time giving me his opinion of something he did not take the time to understand - and frankly neither do you.

>> ^kevingrr:

@ghark
1 - I'm not sure which swipe of Chris Hedges you are referring to. If it is in regard to the Moral Landscape I can only comment that Hedges takes every opportunity to inject himself into the spotlight. Having read the Moral Landscape I can say that the ideas Harris presents CAN be challenged by legitimate thinkers, of which Hedges is not.
Hedges game has been to misrepresent Harris' point of view as written in End of Faith. I would go so far as to call Hedges an all out liar. See my post in this thread:

2 - Where here is Sam blindly racist? He states that acts of terror are more likely to be carried out by young Muslim men than by 5 year old girls or grandmothers.
If I said that black athletes are more likely to be basketball players and white athletes are more likely to be baseball players would that make me racist? Because in terms of professional sports that simply IS the case. Note I am not saying WHY that is the case - I am simply saying it is and the statistics prove it.
As I have said before Sam is not racist, but he is honest about who is most likely to have some bad ideas and he does not like bad ideas.
3. Sam is not a pacifist but he is not a warmonger either. As I listened to the entirety of the interview I noted he had a very nuanced idea of when war, or physical violence of any kind, is justified.
One last link regarding Hedges:
Here


Shouldn't the definition of terrorism (of which there are many) be carefully examined before making that statement? I assume you are using the 'American mainstream media' version, which of course means, an act in which a colored person with a beard tries to inflict injury or death on other (usually white) people. If the definition is not looked at with mainstream-media-tinted spectacles then it would not be a stretch to say that the 105,000+ documented Iraqi civilian casualties since 2003 were caused by American (and allied troops) terrorism. Political and resource motivated civilian slaughter on a massive scale (and on foreign soil) sounds very terrorist-like to me. Using this line of logic, would it not make more statistical sense to worry about young to middle aged white males having access to military training than scanning middle aged Muslim men at airports.

My point is not to blame the US troops, Australian troops were also involved, my point is simply that someone of Harris' intellect should be above the simple fear mongering and use of blatant misleading generalizations that he's demonstrating in this video. He was one of my hero's for a while there, and seeing him for what he truly seems to be leaves me a bit hollow inside.

As far as Hedges goes, he seems to be on the mark most of the time, and is an excellent speaker, however I thought his shots at Harris were pretty poor form (during his book launch) because it just seemed to be a blatant publicity stunt, so I agree with you on that to a degree.

Please take in mind My BS meter couldn't handle more than about 25-30 mins of the video, and as @LukinStone mentions, Harris explains some of his comments in more detail later in the video, I just couldn't make it that far unfortunately. Most of what I was hearing was self-gratification, "a large American city has about a 50% chance of having a nuclear bomb set off in it within the next decade or so", racist comments and some war mongering, there's only so much I can take

What's more, Harris actually discusses the spectrum of that comment (muslims more likely to be terrorists) in the context of the discussion. They are having a discussion about racial profiling, privacy and security. His point isn't that all muslims should be subjected to intrusive searches at airports, just that the current system isn't doing much to prevent an attack. The old woman being frisked thing was an example of this failure.

I like Hedges, but not on religion. And, whenever he engages with Harris, he seems to pull the same crap of quoting him out of context.

I made it about 2 hours into the video and thought Rogan was pretty effective at calling out Harris when an exaggeration was made.

@ghark

1 - I'm not sure which swipe of Chris Hedges you are referring to. If it is in regard to the Moral Landscape I can only comment that Hedges takes every opportunity to inject himself into the spotlight. Having read the Moral Landscape I can say that the ideas Harris presents CAN be challenged by legitimate thinkers, of which Hedges is not.


Hedges game has been to misrepresent Harris' point of view as written in End of Faith. I would go so far as to call Hedges an all out liar. See my post in this thread:


2 - Where here is Sam blindly racist? He states that acts of terror are more likely to be carried out by young Muslim men than by 5 year old girls or grandmothers.

If I said that black athletes are more likely to be basketball players and white athletes are more likely to be baseball players would that make me racist? Because in terms of professional sports that simply IS the case. Note I am not saying WHY that is the case - I am simply saying it is and the statistics prove it.

As I have said before Sam is not racist, but he is honest about who is most likely to have some bad ideas and he does not like bad ideas.

3. Sam is not a pacifist but he is not a warmonger either. As I listened to the entirety of the interview I noted he had a very nuanced idea of when war, or physical violence of any kind, is justified.

One last link regarding Hedges:
Here

well well, there was a bit of a debate about Sam a few months ago when Chris Hedges took a swipe at him on the release of his (Chris's) new book. After watching about 20 mins of this I can really see the argument against Sam, his blind racism here is pretty tough to watch, I never really noticed how pro-war he was before.

if it looks like banks are just sucking out money from hapless europeans, congratulations. You understand it.

Greed caused the too-big-to-fail banks to take on impossible amounts of debt. now that the bankers got their bonuses, and the banks are in jeopardy, the hedge funds will be making huge returns for the ultra-rich. Literally, it's a vacuum for money as these bad debts stay on the books.

wikipedia:

The word pompatus has, because of its peculiarity and seemingly nonsensical usage, become a minor pop trivia icon. Wolfman Jack frequently referenced the phrase and there is a soundclip of him using the line within the song "Clap for the Wolfman" by The Guess Who. A 1996 movie titled The Pompatus of Love starring Jon Cryer featured four guys discussing a number of assorted topics, including attempts to determine the meaning of the phrase.[2] The line has been mentioned in various television show gags, including The Simpsons and South Park.[citation needed] It was the subject of the October 9, 2011 Over the Hedge comic strip.

Humor columnist Dave Barry frequently refers to the song line as a source of comedic value, particularly in his 1997 book, Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs. Pompatus is used by Michael Ondaatje in his 2001 book, Anil's Ghost. Stephen King uses the word in his 2006 novel Lisey's Story. Tim Dorsey uses the word in his 2010 novel, Gator a-Go-Go.

"Pompatus of love" was mentioned by Dan in Hellcats (episode 11) when he was talking to Marti.