Why is Sam Harris considered a meme on /lit/?

He did it to himself.

>>9449966

How?

>>9449964
>Takes the easiest possible Enlightenment era philosophy (utilitarianism)
>Claims to have discovered 'logical' morals

>>9450037
>easiest possible
what did he mean by this?

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>>9449964
Why in le f*ck his face looks so empty/weird a la Lovecraft's cosmic horror?

>>9449964

He's the embodiment of reddit.
It's like he was created by the universe solely for our amusement.

>>9450070
easiest to understand
easiest to argue

>>9450102
why is that something you decided to mention though?

>>9449964
Because he's still an atheist in le current year.

>>9449964
Because he's got an undergrad degree in philosophy and thinks that allows him to solve all the world's problems.

Even a meme philosopher like William Lane Craig blew him the fuck out.

>>9450216
I'm a Christian but even I can admit that Harris completely tore William Lane Craig apart. Christianity needs a better representative than him.

>>9450224
Lol, how? I'm an atheist but Sam Harris just appeals to emotion all the time and can't even answer Craig's phil 101 points.

>Imagine everyone suffering all the time. That's bad!
>How do you know for certain it's bad without a moral guideline?
>IT'S JUST OBJECTIVELY BAD, DUH

>>9450097
>He's the embodiment of reddit.

Except that he's also a race realist now.

I love myself too much to suffer through a shitty nu-science book like Moral Landscape, can somebody briefly summarize Sam's ideas?

>>9450299
>race realist
Thats just a fancier way of saying right and making it accusatory

>>9450307
Everything is explainable through science and spirituality isn't intrinsically anti science.
Hes essentially a utilitarian who's done a whoooole lot of acid

>>9450317
So exactly how does he explain morality. If it's explainable through science, does it mean moral absolutes exist?

>>9450323
He believes in moral fluidity but also the fact that at any given time there are objective moral parameters

>>9450323
i.e Murder is wrong
Stealing is wrong
Stuff like that

>>9450317
>Everything is explainable through science and spirituality isn't intrinsically anti science.
t. undergrad

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>>9450332

>>9450335
I don't agree but thats what he believes

>>9450307
He's essentially a positivist. He does acknowledge the limits of the scientific method, but doesn't seem to care for them, simply because there is no self-regulating framework that deals with them - acknowledging our epistemic limits doesn't make """god""" real, but imaginable.

He claims he is not a moral relativist and his alleged objectivity is grounded in utilitarianism serving 'reduce suffering - whatever that may be'. This goal gives you an objective framework in which some solutions are better than others, without reaching moral absolutes. However, yo can still objectively conclude that a set of moral attitudes are objectively worse than another when it comes to achieving this goal. Now of course theists could claim that 'reducing suffering-whatever that may be' has no objective grounds in itself and they're partly right, but it's not a very important statement.

I think he's done a whole lot of good for both Christians and atheist. He has forced apologists to refine their approach and take a more dignified stance with regards to Christianity. People are just upset because of some of his fedora-atheist following who is just as unsophisticated as Christian sophist. Ironically, this has spawned a new brand of reactonaries: fedora-Christians and people who unironically embrace Islam because of some silly existential angst.

>>9450349
What he said

>>9450085
He is a Jewish man. The Jewish facial structure has been marred by countless generations of degenerate inbreeding. Their culture is hostile to outsiders, and their deceitful nature reflects itself on their rat faced mug.

>>9450323
>>9450332
>>9450333
Science does explain morality though. It's been observered that dogs contain the same moral standards and impulses people do and show a preference for people who are selfless and kind as opposed to those who act selfishly and cruel.

>>9450450
This is the stupidest post I have seen today.

>>9450462
But if we can observe morality in pack animals, surely that shows it has to do with increased social intelligence.

>>9450475
Are you one of these retards who cried watching Hachiko? Just because sometimes animals display behavior that we, humans, interpret as moral acts, doesn't mean that they actually do it for moral reasons. Dumb animals are dumb.

>>9450475
anon, stop it. preferable behaviour is real and determined by the relationship between biology and environment. so yes, in a way science can explain held beliefs and attitudes, even 'ought's' if you're a utilitarian, but it does in no way prescribe value judgements on said behaviours.

>>9450481
>>9450485

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-dogs-monkeys-human-like-morality.html

I am sorry anons, but I'm not pulling this from my ass.

>>9449964
>no true scientific credentials
>Mediocre pop-sci writer
>terrible philosopher, and he's just repeating shit other people did
>His personal positions are nonsensical, contradictory, or unsupportable
What else do you need?

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He's just a Hume disciple
He likes to pretend Kant doesn't exist

>>9450224
>Harris completely tore William Lane Craig apart
You must have seen a different interaction

>>9449964
He takes himself too seriously.

>>9450299
There is NOTHING wrong with pointing out that there are racial differences concerning IQ. If a sub-sharan african has an IQ 2 standard deviations lower than a country he imigrates to, of course he's statistically going to have a harder time getting a job/being succesful.

god damnit I hate lefties and their complete unwillingness to consider these kinds of things.

>>9450486
Reacting positively to things that are kind does not equal "morals".

>>9450519
Sub-Saharan Africans don't usually have much of hard time getting jobs when they imigrate. It's usually the African descendants who are born and minorities in a country who have difficult times.

>>9450523
If that was true, how would the animals have any basis to even know what "kind" is or observe what makes something kind or not kind?

If they truly didn't know or care, how come they simply didn't take the treat from any of the men who offered the treats?

>>9450492
this, it's bizarre. he's also insufferably smug and associated with dennett and dawkins so reddit

>>9450519
There are, however, pointing out racial differences in IQ and ignoring poverty differences in IQ.

All of the differences people point out between races based on their behaviour and IQ can be just as easily linked to poverty, those behaviours and IQ.

Granted, there likely is a racial impact on IQ but even that doesn't change the fact that IQ is a terrible, biased way of grading intelligence

>>9450546
What does poverty have to do with recognizing shapes and patterns?

>>9450299
Why do people on 4channthink that redditors scums are SJWs lefties?
They're all either centrist or way down the right spectrum, there are maybe 10 active leftist subreddits and that's it.

Are you guys doing it to picture yourselves as some sort of counterculture? Because you're not, now you're the normie in the bunch.

>>9450550
That's racist.

>>9450546
you do realise that studies have been adjusted for poverty. and other studies involved adopted children from different racial backgrounds. IQ is hereditary up to 60%.

as to what is measures, that is indeed not as clear. predictive accuracy for success in various cognitive activities corelates highly with IQ, so it's a useful tool. mostly for benchmarks. other factors have higher predictive capabilities past a certain IQ threshold.

>>9450550
Full-scale IQ is built off of linguisitcs, basic arithmatic, pattern recognition and remembrance, shape recognition and general knowledge.

Of those six examples, it's very obvious why someone who is poor and thus, will have a poor education due to lack of a stable homelife, lack of opportunities and lack of motivation would be bad at arithmatic, linguistics and general knowledge, no? Even remembering and repeating back number series?

Additionally, this doesn't change the fact that IQ tests are designed to focus primarily on linguistic and artihmatic intelligences as opposed to musical, physical-kinestethic, spiritual, naturalist and intrapersonal.

>>9450538
Your presupposing a lot.

The animals can recognize people who are predisposed to kindness, that is, generosity and probably recognize that those people are less likely to harm them. Its beneficial to them. Its probably ingrained in them genetically to recognize such things. I'll agree. It doesn't follow, however, that recognizing kindness is the same thing as having any innate sense of morals.

I'm a bit high on painkillers right now (tooth pulled out) but I'm going totry and make sense:

Although, yes, there is probably a case for the idea that we and and other animals have innate things we should value for our own survival etc and the betterness of our communities, the thing we have as humans is the ability to make a huge chunk of decisions that are all different.

I think the position that morals comes natural to us, and that there are a small amount of moral values that are inherently better because of genetics is a type of fallacy of nature. We as humans have huge chunk of decision, rather than set morals.

Fuck this was bad.

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>>9450544
Nothing wrong with a little Hume every once and a while, especially for babby's first philosophy

>>9450578
>musical, physical-kinestethic, spiritual, naturalist and intrapersonal
>intelligence

wew

>>9450591
It's a very popular educational theory, and widely agreed upon. Google the nine types of intelligence.

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>>9450591
>tfw you'll always be more broke and be more "intelligent" than this guy

>>9450586
Anon, none of this makes any sense. The generousity point is moot because the animals were all being offered the same food and there's a difference between not sharing and being violent. They are surrounded by all of these humans and have no reason to think they'd harm them but suddenly, the fact that the person doesn't share makes the animal scared of them? Even if it's noted that the animals didn't have a single fear response?

Plus, the very ability to detect if something is kind is imperative to morals because if you can tell if something is good or bad, you have a scale to judge moral actions on. Reptiles, for instance, will just eat the treats regardless as will insects but as noted, dogs and monkeys (two of the most socially sophisticated animals) will not. If you can grade things on a scale like this, this shows that you are capable of judgement.

Now, I'd also like to point out how most society's on Earth tend to agree that stealing, raping and killing among your own social group is bad. The fact that this is near universally true shows that there is a bias towards this thinking. Now, we show animals also have a similar concept that not sharing or not assisting one another is "selfish".

I am not arguing that animal morality is as nuanced as human morality and at no point did I do that. What I said was that animals display morality and morality likely comes from intelligence and evolution; it is explainable by science.

>>9450600
I'm not going to pretend I know who he is, but I'm assuming his success is a result of the kind of musical demand coming from a certain demographic. not sure how this is related to intelligence.

>>9450593
some of these correlate highly with the notion of g and its measurement through IQ tests. it's myers-briggs tier horoscopes.

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>>9450614
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_%28operating_system%29

>>9450632
how will I recover.

>>9450638
I think you're doing well so far Anon. Good for you to not take the bait.

>>9450110
It was the right thing to do.

>>9450495
No, I've yet to see William Lane Craig win a debate, or even come close to winning one, which is disappointing because I'm always rooting for him.

>>9450578

Africans never invented the wheel, think about it.

>>9450703
Did you?

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>>9450703

>>9449964
Because mad Christians and people who deny reality

>>9450238
>without a moral guideline?
But he has already stated his moral guideline over and over, which is to reduce the suffering and increase the well-being of conscious creatures. His stating this as the objective measure is in itself subjective, sure, just like it's subjective to use some supposed God's moral standards as the objective measure.

>>9450593

These "multiple intelligences" always collapse into "g" or one of the "Big Five" traits if you do proper statistical analysis. It's not a surprise that people are skeptical about IQ, it's really disturbing how powerful a concept "g" is - especially if you consider that extremely crude measures, such as working memory capacity and reaction time can serve as shockingly good proxies for it.

>>9450722
no, but someone of my race did, think of the implications of an entire continent not coming up with the concept of the wheel. When Joseph Conrad described them as savages he was not wrong. The only people who think he is racist have never travelled anywhere, even today, it's hard not to go to Uganda and think of the people there as primitive in thought, I'm in Myanmar now, the same applies.

>>9450784
you're misrepresenting Harris' views

>>9450784
>it's hard not to go to Uganda and think of the people there as primitive in thought, I'm in Myanmar now, the same applies.

I've been to underdeveloped countries, and I can tell you that if you really think that, you're personally retarded.

>>9450575

What were the races and how did they determine who belonged to what race?

>>9450519
Sub-saharan african is not a race

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>>9449964
Because.

>>9450800

No, I'm not, I've seen it with my own eyes. Sorry to hurt your feelings, but it's true.

>>9450801
>What were the races and how did they determine who belonged to what race?
I hope you're not suggesting race is a social construct?

look into twin studies, Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, etc

>>9450826
>I hope you're not suggesting race is a social construct?

It is and it is not

>look into twin studies, Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study

I don't really like those studies. They deal with adopted children. Ask yourself if the kinds of people who have to give up their children for adoption are a good sample. It claims to control for poverty and environment but it can't actually do that. I can imagine a greater percentage of those children (black ones) are from poor black mothers with bad diets and drug habits giving their children up for adoption than there would be on the white side. You cannot control for poverty in an adoption study

You also cannot control for teachers and society having lower expectations for black children and the subtle beating down of their own expectations of themselves. This will also have an effect. It's been shown that if you tell people that their race/gender scores low on a certain test before they write it they will do worse on that test.

I wanted to read more about the methodology of the Minesota study but that is what I could get from wikipedia, actual studies are behind a paywall.

>>9450826
>I hope you're not suggesting race is a social construct?

Not him, but the racial categories that we use colloquially certainly are. They are based largely on superficial differences like appearance and regional proximity rather than genetic similarity most of the time.

>>9450885
Not on a side but here's the full original study

http://www.kjplanet.com/amp-31-10-726.pdf

>>9450823
>No, I'm not, I've seen it with my own eyes. Sorry to hurt your feelings, but it's true.

I suppose you tested the intelligence of all those you saw around you in a rigorous and methodical manner?

>>9450885
well, friend, look into the controversial bell-curve as well. its author has recently done a ben stiller podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1lEPQYQk8s

ultimately, there is more variance amongst individuals than racial groups, so there is really not much of a point of focusing too much on racial differences.

and you're right, race 'is and is not' a social construct. it is conceivable of a different set of criteria predicated on biological group-categorisation that would be more useful in predicting common social and biological characteristics. that does not question the existence of race though. it does however, call into question the extent of its usefulness.

>>9450898
sure, I sort of acknowledged your point here >>9450930

>>9450930
Not him, but the perception of race is certainly a social construct, as is the categories of "black" and "white" etc that certain lard-enriched Anglos invented.

However, phenotypical differences are obviously physical facts.

The question is whether or phenotypical differences matter in any grave sense.

I don't think they do, personally.

>>9450900

Yep they mentioned the point I suggested and some others. Seems inconclusive.

>>9450930
Thanks I'll listen to that podcast

>>9450958
they certainly do as far as genetic disorders go. as far as established psychological differences go, like I said, individual variance is a much bigger factor to even take racial differences seriously.

I'm completely open to having any other genetic set with more predictive accuracy dictate our perception of race

It is worrying how easily corruptible these studies can be though

>>9450554
From what my lefty friends tell me, there's a vocal group of progressives on reddit which your average /pol/babby can't differentiate from actual leftists.

>>9450987
>individual variance is a much bigger factor to even take racial differences seriously
Suppose you have two groups. Group A has IQs from 80 to 100. Group b has IQs going from 100 to 120. People from either of these groups can be tall or short, muscular or weak, have fast metabolism or slow metabolisms, etc, but they still share that one characteristic.
What I'm trying to say is that your argument makes no sense.

>>9450987
>they certainly do as far as genetic disorders go. as far as established psychological differences go, like I said, individual variance is a much bigger factor to even take racial differences seriously.

I agree. However, even saying what you're saying now is too politically incendiary in some circles.

>>9451002
>but they still share that one characteristic

Obviously you don't understand what a *statistical average* means.

*On average* there are group differences in IQ. But that doesn't you can predict a person's IQ simply because they are from the Congo.

>>9451015
>Obviously you don't understand what a *statistical average* means.
It was an example you twat. In fact, it was such a ridiculous example that I just named the groups A and B.

>>9450102
>it's too functional i don't like things that work

>>9451033
How about we recycle a minority to help the majority?

>>9449964
>Why is Sam Harris considered a meme on /lit/?

because his publisher pays a viral marketing firm to spam him

>>9450784
I've been around the world and I can say intelligence is not merely measurable by a "wheel".

I think you have a cognitive bias towards other races if you can't see that there are things a Buddhist culture succeed in much better than a Western one. In fact, Buddhist thought was highly influential in modern western philosophy: Hume, Nietzche, Schoppenhaur and more all borrowed heavily from writers like Nagarjuna and others. Buddhist academies around Bihar were some of the best in the world before the Mughals destroyed them.

>>9450612
That explains adaptation and survival instinct but says nothing of morality.
Also, as for universality, if that were true then within each social system we wouldn't see rape, murder, stealing, etc, yet we do, and in large numbers. The universality argument can be applied to god. Each country, region, subregion, community, has had their own conception of god, does everyone believe in it? No! But does it exist to each group? Yep! Does that mean god exists? Nope! Apply to morality.
However, to humor this and say, alright, sure, there's evidence of a morality, it doesn't follow that we must adhere to it simply because it exists. The hierarchical dictation of a morality doesn't exist, even if say a morality does.

>>9450996
Why would it make a difference to them?
All the issues that /pol/ is most opposed to, liberals and ""true leftists"" are in agreement on.

>>9450578
>to musical, physical-kinestethic, spiritual, naturalist and intrapersonal.
That's a fancy way of saying blacks are good at talking to each other about how woke they are while listening to rap after a game of basketball.

>>9451002
sure, but I see your hypothetical anecdote as reinforcing my argument that individual differences matter more. in that case it's pointless to group those individual based on IQ scores as it seems to inform on no other predictive capability than whatever is associated with IQ.

>>9451085
That's naive. Wether or not you consider group differences must obviously depend on the situation.
Group differences are clearly relevant in many situations and when it comes to many issues. Ie politics, maybe not that much in all situations in personal life though.

>>9451089
I honestly don't understand what you're arguing about. I agree with everything you said.

>>9450632
Do you know this girl? Her profile isn't very well known...

>>9451091
You appeared to be arguing that we ignore it completely.

>>9451101
I was merely describing my understanding of 'how race is and isn't' a social construct and the extent to which racial differences in IQ scores are to be taken seriously. We don't seem to disagree on much, apart from the preconceived notions we had about each other when we entered this discussion.

>>9451117
I'm a new guy.

>>9450519
the only reason their iq is low is because of their shit upbringing you unscientific mong

>>9451195
are you claiming selecting blacks from high income households still isn't enough because their upbringing is inherently shit?

>>9451201
>>9451195
nevermind, just saw you were talking about sub-saharan africans, so shit upbringing is likely the case for wealthy ones too.

doesn't hold water for wealthy western blacks though.

>>9451209
>doesn't hold water for wealthy western blacks though.

Well "wealthy western blacks" have affirmative action, so it doesn't really matter if they have high IQ or not.

>>9450238
Not a proponent of Harris, but you can argue that things considered morally bad through the lense of ideology are equally bad under any number of logical or philosophical ethics systems. Even though these ethics are not monoliths like ideology's morals, they interact pretty cleanly in modern western society and transcend the need for ideology in doing so to form a kind of societal morals, upon which the social contract is predicated.

>>9451301
Natural variances in IQ trends explain "wealthy western blacks", as does the general framework of the capitalist market, without even needing to account for affirmative action. Another reason why affirmative action is unnecessary

>>9451414
Except capitalism isn't a pure meritocracy. If it was, you would be correct.

>>9450299
Exactly.

>>9451431
Pure meritocracy would only disadvantage the lower-scoring minorities, if you believe IQ scores to be predictions of general success. That's why our capitalism is guided by constitutional law which assures equal starting grounds for all peoples. Affirmative Action creates special privileges for individuals, effectively putting them above the law.

>>9451431
Isn't pure meritocracy always at work? Since humans are equal, their happenstances are just the difficulty setting.

>>9451626
Yeah but inherited wealth and social privilege also exist.

Just because people are born equal as a matter of law, doesn't mean they are equal in circumstances.

It's pretty clear that people who are born into rich and affluent families can be pretty retarded and still land a decent job, as opposed to a smart kid living in the projects.

>>9451195
Social science-y stuff isn't something you can easily replicate in a lab, so you can always resort to nitpicking the methodology and all kinds of excuses.
Having power in academia and mainstream media (as you people currently do) certainly helps as well.

But the truth is coming out and eventually you'll run out of steam.
Just recently a gene was discovered that explains why negroes are more prone to violence, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A

>>9451642
>smart kid living in the projects.
If a child is smart, it's likely that his parents were smart and their parents and so on. If this were true, then they would not be poor and live in the ghetto. But you state that the child does live there. But, you see, this is a contradiction, therefore the child is not smart. Therefore there are no smart children in the projects.
Logic and reason: learn them.

>>9451654
>If a child is smart, it's likely that his parents were smart and their parents and so on.

No it's not. IQs tend to revert to the mean. There's no guarantee that a child of smart people will be smart even though it's highly heritable.

>>9451654
wew brainlet. certainly not denying IQ variances across races, but you are proof that individual variances are much more significant and thus, render racial differences of very little significance.

>>9451195
so you fully believe we found a proven way to raise IQ in developing stages?

>>9451179
For you.

>>9450492
This

"A Critique of Pure Harris" when???

>>9451654
> If this were true, then they would not be poor and live in the ghetto

Holy fuck I could write a fucking compendium on the layers of capitalist libertarian ideology in this one fucking sentence.

Write a book, alt-right bootlickers will eat this garbage up.

>>9451653
>Having power in academia and mainstream media (as you people currently do) certainly helps as well.

Kek. Please be satire.

>>9451654
>If a child is smart, it's likely that his parents were smart and their parents and so on. If this were true, then they would not be poor and live in the ghetto

This is so naive it's ridiculous.

Apparently he's enlightened

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>>9449964
He went up against a bigger meme and never came back the same.

>>9450612
Dummy

>>9453534
People who deny the realities of race do have power, though.
Racial quotas in universities and elsewhere are a prime example.

>>9454342
I've never heard of a university having racial quotas.

>>9455091
It's a thing in the US, for both students and staff: https://www.statnews.com/2017/04/26/diversify-missouri-medical-school/
>Lucey said the schools has rethought its admissions process — less focus on MCAT scores, more focus on life experiences — to reach a “critical mass” of minority students.
They literally accept niggers with worse grades just to meet the quotas.