Ahhh, I probably did not notice or if I did I did not think it wise to respond.
Why bring up the fact that he is white at all? What does that have to do with his arguments? What you may say about the group of white men may be true, but what does that have to do with Sam? If the group of white people have fewer challenges are you assigning the level of challenges that Sam has faced based on his race rather than his own individual experience. What does the average level of challenges faced by white men have to do with level that Sam had to face. It looks like you are saying his accomplishments or arguments are worth less because he’s white.
Again, isn’t applying stereotypes to individuals based on race, racist.
It was just an observation based on my experience. Maybe it has something to do with that particular instance of Sam’s stupidity (he’s a very smart scientist, but what I was criticizing was a very stupid thing that he said) or maybe not. I think it would be wise if all successful white men in America recognized that being white and male meant they faced fewer obstacles then they would have if they were other than white and other than male – recognizing this would help us avoid making those similar mistakes of overconfidence that many other successful people make.
He is a pundit who went on a crusade after 9/11, and only got his PhD to try and prove his pre-conceived ideas around morality with fMRI machines.
This despite his pop-science claims ignore the fact-value distinction and do not work with the scientific method. That doesn’t make him dumb but there is no evidence to show he has a particularly higher ability to detect the truth.
As you seem to trust popular scientist types, let me cite Sean Carroll’s updated post with links about ‘why’ the field Sam Harris chose on his crusade is problematic.
But lets explain why “successful white guy” is not bigotry here by quoting one of his own scientific papers.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep39589#abstract
Sam Harris and Deepak Chopra are both smart guys, but they both try to leverage science to justify their ideas, and not as scientists. Their science seems to be more about trying to prove their philosophical beliefs.
Why Sam Harris is like a “typical white guy” is because he keeps repeating the propaganda from the white male victims playbook and ignores competing information…just like his study above detected.
If you proselytize from the Bible people will assume you are Christian, if you proselytize from the winy hurt white guy playbook who would rather stop all programs vs move forward for societal good…you are going to be called out as such.
He is making the same mistakes the eugenicists made, co-opting the scientific method in name while not following it with his scientific morality claims.
I’ve said it before but I’ll repeat it here – all of this is about society. I see no reason to believe in any intrinsic differences between white people and black people or any other groups. It’s society that treats us differently in various ways based on race and other characteristics.
There is a lot to unpack here:
Once again, it looks like you are still applying the stereotype (true or not, we will discuss) of the group to the specific individual. This is racism in it’s simplistic form. Just because it is against white people doesn’t make it cool.
Maybe Sam Harriss had it way easier than even most white men. Maybe he had it way harder than anybody else. The ease with which white people have it on average has no bearing on either Sam Harriss’ arguments or his ease in achieving his status. There is no possible reason other than to make a racist comment and demean Harris’s to bring his race into the subject of the merit of his arguments or the ease with he achieved his status. If you wish to comment on the latter I think you should do so specifically.
Perhaps a given white man has had certain advantages because he is white, but maybe this kid was a victim of child abuse. Maybe he also had an accident and was a burn victim, and as such suffered as few have suffered. (Go visit the burn center at Shriner’s children’s hospital and tell the kid In bandages and suffering the tortured of the damned because any more pain killers will stop his breathing that he is lucky that he is white and he needs to be mindful of his privilege.) Maybe his father lost his job, and he had to pay his way through college by getting up at 5 in the morning every day to shovel horseshit. Maybe he did pretty well (perhaps he would have been a surgeon like he wanted if he had the dexterity in his hands and the money to go to medical school.)
Are you going to tell this person he needs to be aware of how easy he had it because he’s white?
I would say his advantage may have been offset, because there is more than one factor involved as to whether or not someone has it easy.
Or suppose that black kid in Beverly Hills (who is a great kid) gets an extra 200 points on his SAT because he is black even though he has led the most privileged existence imaginable, the best tutors, the best private schools. He gets into Harvard. Meanwhile an Asian kid from abject poverty does his homework in a closet. The single Mom raising him makes him do his homework in the closet so he doesn’t got shot by the stray bullets that occasionally hit the house. He goes to one of the worst public schools in the country. However, he gets 200 points taken off his SAT, and he doesn’t get into anywhere.
Blacks on average have it harder, right. The Black kid from Beverly Hills overcame his racial disadvantages to succeed? Asian kids have a cultural advantage in academics, so it’s ok to penalize the little kid.
Does this sound moral to you, or does it sound evil?
This is what happens when you apply the characteristics of groups to individuals on a racial basis. People are not their racial average.
Do whites have it easier? Have you read Hillbilly elegy? You can be white and still have it really shitty and be fucked for life.
Do whites have it easier? Do you have any peer reviewed hard evidence to support this, based on real science? How do you quantify easier? What use is such information? How could you possibly apply it to individuals? What kind of an asshole would study such a thing?
Why would you care what race has it easy? A race can’t have it easy. Individuals can.
Whites are not in danger of suffering the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany anytime soon, but it was the very attribution of privilege, unfairly attained that was applied as an excuse for the Nazis to commit the holocaust.
You are no Nazi, but you are borrowing a pretty sizable chunk of Nazi philosophy here.
You may wish to rethink
Rat;
I don’t care about Sam Harris. I care what Iandyiii thinks about him because he is white.
You and I are society.
And this is the problem, focusing on personal attacks and tit-for-tat tactics vs trying to solve the problem.
Uh, you first, I pointed already how illogical is your argument here that avoids a big middle.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21256144&postcount=626
Working on making a fairer society or dealing with a racist society does not necessarily lead to the extermination of the oppressors or the people that had the advantage while the injustice prevailed.
None of this really appears to conflict with what I’ve said. White people can have it incredibly difficult, and I’ve never said otherwise. I’m talking about society. Society tends to treat rich people better than poor people; straight people better than gay people; able bodied people better than disabled people; white people better than people of color; etc. There are obviously some exceptions – but in general, if all but one of those categories are held constant, then the remaining category will be determinative – i.e. a rich straight able-bodied black person will (in general) have fewer obstacles than a poor straight able-bodied black person; and a poor straight white able-bodied person will (in general) face fewer obstacles than a poor straight black able bodied person; and so on.
This is an indictment of society, and how our society treats people of different races (and wealth status, disability status, etc.). It says nothing about the intrinsic nature of any of these groups or anyone in these groups. The way all these various characteristics interact with systemic and institutional biases in society is an incredibly complicated topic. But it’s still real, when we’re talking broadly. Saying that in general, rich people have it easier than poor people doesn’t discount the difficulty some individual rich people might face. Same goes for any and all other categories. It’s important that we recognize these tendencies in society so that we can give our children a realistic view of how they will be treated by others and by systems and institutions in broader society.
. I can’t how you could think that.
Society doesn’t do anything. Society is simply the term that we use to describe a corpus of interrelating individuals. There is no “society” outside of a 50,000 ft viewpoint. It’s a statistical shorthand metaphor. It is an invalid way to view individuals. It applies only to groups. You keep applying perceived group attributes to individuals
So? Why does it matter that they are black? What does that have to do with anything? You know that correlation does not equal causation right? Most NBA players are black. Do you think being black is a predictive factor for being in the NBA? It’s not, or if it is it shows up below the error bar. Height is the number one predictor.
Have you done a regression analysis on any of those factors above to demonstrate whether they are actually true, or if there is a causative correlation?
Do you think blacks have it tough because they are black?
I think blacks have it tough because they have a higher poverty rate which leads to lower education and opportunity which leads to higher poverty etc.
We have poverty, education, single families, weak community resources, poor support mechanisms, and, somewhere on this list will be prejudice, but I would bet a regression analysis would put it under 10% as a contributing factor. Now, the primary cause of all these things results from slavery and segregation and white supremacy, but I don’t think we live in a generally racist environment any more.
If you want solve the problem work on poverty, education, and opportunity. Give that. What are you giving somebody if you say they are disadvantaged because they are black. You are spreading a lie. It’s not blackness that is the problem.
But you consistently apply these group things to individuals, like You juts did with Sam Harris.
Btw, isn’t Sam Harris an actual philosopher not a scientist? He is not actually making scientific arguments than, but rational ones, right? He is the Democrat atheist guy, yes?
He got a PHD in cognitive neuroscience after he gained popularity but yes, he originally majored in philosopher.
As far as fighting to maintain the institutional racism, that doesn’t matter if a person is a D or an R. The Republicans have weaponized it to use fear and drive poll turnout, but it is just something we need to fix.
FYI, most of your complains about reverse discrimination would go away if we addressed that, individuals are free to be bigots as long as we don’t force that onto the population as a whole.
But I’m not. I didn’t say anything definitive about Harris aside from criticizing his words. I also mentioned a societal factor that may or may not be involved.
I don’t think you’re following me, because none of this conflicts with anything I’ve said.
I think you’re mostly talking past me, and intuiting things that I have not said and do not intend, so I’ll suggest that if you want to continue this discussion, you be very, very specific, and tell me (with quotes) exactly which of my assertions you disagree with.
Thanks, I was just trying to identify him. Making sure I had the right guy.
I wasn’t making an argument about reverse discrimination. I don’t think such a thing exists. It’s just ‘discrimination’. People using that term don’t know what they are saying.
Same with ‘social justice’. There is no such thing. Just justice. ‘Social justice’ is almost a contradiction. If it only makes sense from a social perspective it’s not just. It’s something else.
He is invoked often when people are trying to invoke a claim that there is a biological basis for race because he gave podcast time to some flawed science and had bought the PC war junk.
Really this is about equal rights, but politics and fear are useful for both parties vote count.
Obviously people of color and women get the short end of this stick.
Iandyiii;
You brought up Harriss’ whiteness while simultaneoulsy pointing out that white people are prone to overestimating their intelligence if they are successful. Later you explained that it’s because white people have it easy.
Harriss’ whiteness is an irrelevant factor that was not a part of the issue or discussion until you brought it up as a way of casting shade at him.
I heard him discuss atheism and the path of scientific inquiry once. I haven’t listened to this particular podcast.
I haven’t read the bell curve, but I remember the controversy, and then later some stuff saying that maybe the controversy was unjust, but I have not studied this issue. I work with bell curves all the time, and I think that dividing people up and measuring them by race is going to be inherently problematic and prone to producing all kinds of wiggy results.
The key to these things is making sure you get your categories right in the first place. For example, let’s say I do a bell curve of IQ by race and for the sake of argument Asians are on top, followed by whites, followed by blacks. Oh my God! I just justified racism!
Nope. Do it again. This time do it by income level. Hey look, that’s an even bigger determinant than race!
Now do it again by whether or not your parents both have a college degree. that’s important to! Who knew?
Keep doing this, and then do a regression analysis to normalize your results against race. Does race by itself have a correlative or causative relationship? It’s causative? Wow, what does that mean? What’s your error bar? Is it bigger than the difference. No? Is IQ the right measure? It is? Hmmm. What else? Oh shit, the firm you hired to administer the test fucked up and all the people in Ohio got a juice and cookie break in the middle of the test, while the ones in Philly didn’t.
My understanding is that there have been enough of these studies that show that the differences in race tend to fall into the error bar long before you work out most of these factors.
With one exception. If I recall correctly there is this one population of a certain type of Orthadox Jew that just tends to blow the curve consistently, but apparently that is the only group that does this, and this is usually not shown as an example of the mentalsuperiority of this sect of Orthodox Jew, it rather as an example of the difficulty sometimes encountered in normalization.
Am I missing anything or should Ingo listen to the podcast/
So obviously when you do this and get big causative results for income, and small shrinking ones from race, it becomes pretty clear which is the causative correlation influencing the noncausative one.