*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 12:15pm PDT - promote requested by eric3579.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by Boise_Lib.

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.

@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

Looks like Joe Rogan could use some Joe Rogain. . . with Joe Minoxidil?

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.

tl;dw

>> ^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

watch the damn video, ignorant racist
>> ^ghark:

>> :
My BS meter couldn't handle more than about 25-30 mins of the video,.., I just couldn't make it that far unfortunately.

@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.

Sam Harris posted a reply to many of the criticisms raised here.

Harris' Reply.