# Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 23, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052 "2017-04-23T09:21:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 83
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1641 "2018-08-02T17:52:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s not my coinage: > > [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html) Trust me, I doubt anyone here credits you with the level of creativity required even for a phrase as pretentiously awful as that. And hot damn, it truly is awful. I didn’t even know wannabe edgelord emo was s thing! ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1642 "2018-08-02T19:24:43Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Especially when that ish is **nearly two hours long**. **SlackerInc** , if you want to restrict your discussions of Sam Harris podcasts to posters who’ve already listened to them, like the “seen it” threads in Cafe Society, that’s up to you. But a lot of the rest of us have absolutely no interest in devoting that kind of time or clicks to Harris’s bloviating, and will not participate if that’s a requirement for participation. > > So if you want to have a discussion about ideas or publications or controversies that Harris talks about, you’re going to have to provide alternative **written** sources for them (as you did with your link to the Hughes article) and not keep exhorting people to listen to the podcast itself, because ain’t gonna happen. This just seems weird, upside down. I’ve noted that for me personally, podcasts fit much better into a busy day than articles (I can listen while cooking, cleaning, or driving). And Sam has said more people listen to each episode of his podcast than have read any of his bestselling books. (He also says it’s way beyond the numbers he gets for blog posts, so it’s not just because of free vs. purchased.) ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1643 "2018-08-02T19:25:50Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > To be fair, it’s very difficult to find a college undergrad who’s overly confident in their opinions. Teenagers and those just out of their teens are famous for their lack of sureness, in their understanding of the complexities of the world, for their hesitance to make any sort of overreaching statement. When you finally find one who sounds sure of themselves, it’s so unusual, of COURSE you’re going to believe them! especially when they say what you want them to say. \ ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1644 "2018-08-02T19:46:57Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This just seems weird, upside down. I’ve noted that for me personally, podcasts fit much better into a busy day than articles (I can listen while cooking, cleaning, or driving). And Sam has said more people listen to each episode of his podcast than have read any of his bestselling books. (He also says it’s way beyond the numbers he gets for blog posts, so it’s not just because of free vs. purchased.) That’s for you, though – podcasts don’t work well for me. And others, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1645 "2018-08-02T20:08:33Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This just seems weird, upside down. I’ve noted that for me personally, podcasts fit much better into a busy day than articles (I can listen while cooking, cleaning, or driving). I’m not in any way quarrelling with how you like to spend your time. But you should not assume that everybody else has two hours of attention to spare for a meandering spoken conversation about some points in some published article that they can read in its entirety in ten to twenty minutes. Also, if you’re seeking to have an intelligent critical discussion about such points, it is far easier to examine their details in easily accessible and coherent written form than to try to sift through all the "um"s and "well"s and digressions to find a specific spoken sentence in an audio recording. If all you’re after is a free-floating ponder session about listeners’ own reactions to their memories of a podcast considered as an isolated experience, like the above-mentioned cracker-barrel philosophers sitting around the village store discussing last Sunday’s sermon, go for it. But if you want an actual Dopeworthy sort of debate involving facts and figures and cites and comparisons of different sources, then literacy (along with internet-literacy) is your friend. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > And Sam has said more people listen to each episode of his podcast than have read any of his bestselling books. I’m not denying that it’s less effort, and often more convenient, to listen passively to a podcast than to read articles or books. I’m just noting that it’s less efficient as a medium for actually understanding and critically analyzing the subject under discussion. If you really want other posters to discuss details of the podcasts themselves with you, then either restrict your discussion invitations in your thread to posters who are willing to spend the requisite hours listening to them, or else provide links to online digital transcripts of them. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1646 "2018-08-02T20:50:16Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I’m not denying that it’s less effort, and often more convenient, to listen passively to a podcast than to read articles or books. I’m just noting that it’s less efficient as a medium for actually understanding and critically analyzing the subject under discussion. Also text is much easier to skim than Podcast or youtube content, and its easier to cut and paste pieces of from text that you want to highlight or argue against than it is to say “go to 20:13 on the pod cast where he says …” ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2018, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1647 "2018-08-02T23:04:26Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Also text is much easier to skim than Podcast or youtube content, and its easier to cut and paste pieces of from text that you want to highlight or argue against than it is to say “go to 20:13 on the pod cast where he says …” I grant that last point, and I wish there were searchable transcripts for that purpose. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Also, if you’re seeking to have an intelligent critical discussion about such points, it is far easier to examine their details in easily accessible and coherent written form than to try to sift through all the "um"s and "well"s and digressions to find a specific spoken sentence in an audio recording. If any professional podcasters are reading this, they might have to be helped off their fainting couches right about now. 😉 Podcasts, except for really low grade, down-and-dirty ones (which I do not listen to) are actually very carefully produced and edited. There should not be any “um”s or “well”s, digressions are often edited out, and a good podcaster begins with a structured outline, talking points or questions, etc., and runs a tight ship. Sam’s are a little looser than some, in part because he doesn’t want to be accused of censorship. But I still don’t find them to have many of those faults. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That’s for you, though – podcasts don’t work well for me. And others, apparently. But my personal experience was only part of what I posted there. Look at the huge listenership numbers he cites. It seems evident to me that podcasts are increasingly the present and future in terms of bringing complex issues to a much wider audience than in the past. And BTW, Sam speaks very deliberately, so unless his guest is abnormally mismatched in tempo, it’s easy to listen in at least 1.5x, which knocks two hours down to 1:20. And it’s not like you have to listen all at once—I generally just grab a few minutes here and there throughout the day. But I did also link to one of Hughes’s Quillette essays. Here now are links to all four of them: > **[Kanye West and the Future of Black Conservatism](https://quillette.com/2018/04/24/kanye-west-future-black-conservatism/)** > > When black people are asked what they think about myriad race-related issues, their answers often deviate from liberal orthodoxy. > **[The Racism Treadmill](https://quillette.com/2018/05/14/the-racism-treadmill/)** > > If racism still looms large in our social and political lives, then, as one left-wing commentator put it, “progress is debatable.” > **[The High Price of Stale Grievances](https://quillette.com/2018/06/05/high-price-stale-grievances/)** > > Why are blacks the only ethnic group routinely and openly encouraged to nurse stale grievances back to life? > **[Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap](https://quillette.com/2018/07/19/black-american-culture-and-the-racial-wealth-gap/)** > > In the public debate on racial inequality, the wealth gap is among the sharpest arrows in the progressive quiver. Disclaimer: I have not read them (I cited the excerpt by doing a word search of something I remembered him saying on the podcast), but I assume they cover the same ground as the podcast episode, but in greater detail. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1648 "2018-08-03T00:48:19Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It seems evident to me that podcasts are increasingly the present and future in terms of bringing complex issues to a much wider audience than in the past. Learning about complex issues by listening to podcasts is how we end up with people like you. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1649 "2018-08-03T01:16:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It seems evident to me that podcasts are increasingly the present and future in terms of bringing complex issues to a much wider audience than in the past. Yes, because that audience includes people who think reading is too hard. All they have to do is turn on a podcast while multasking around the home and they can feel like a learned scholar. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1650 "2018-08-03T03:11:50Z")
Again, we’ll be sure to keep all podcasts off your respective lawns. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1651 "2018-08-03T11:28:02Z")
I’m going back to the original post here, Slacker: > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Or, many might say, of _Bell Curve_ “infamy”. But it sounds like he’s gotten a raw deal. > > I’d be interested in discussing [this podcast,](https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/forbidden-knowledge) but I would ask that you actually \*listen \*to it in its entirety before weighing in. If you listen at 1.5x speed like I do (though you’d have to use a podcatcher of some sort to do that, or wait a few days until Sam puts it up on YouTube), it’s only an hour and a half of your time. > > In case anyone’s wondering why I posted this in the Pit: the title of the episode is “Forbidden Knowledge”, and that kind of says it all. Sam said he thinks _The Bell Curve_ was the most controversial book of the past half-century, and as they dig increasingly into its contents, he talks about “beginning to pull out the control rods” and so on. What the fuck is your point? Why not just say specifically what you’d like to assert or debate? In your very next post, you say: > [@](#): > > I have nothing to say to anyone who refuses to listen to the episode and instead just spouts boilerplate ad hominem. If that means crickets, so be it. Podcast review isn’t something that normally appears in the Pit - either have an argument and bring it, or as Kimstu said, post it elsewhere. I think that’s one of the reasons posters are aggravated with you. It seems from the start that you’re just race baiting, but rather than having the intellectual integrity to come out and make a specific set of claims, you coyly make others guess what it is you want to say. Worse, you assign us 2 hours of homework with no reward, hope we have specific reactions to it so that we give you opportunities to respond. Put more effort into the original post next time…Slacker. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1652 "2018-08-03T12:52:36Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I grant that last point, and I wish there were searchable transcripts for that purpose. Well, why not make your wishes known to the podcast producer? Plenty of other audio shows/podcasts **do** provide transcripts after broadcasting/publishing their audio version. If Harris knows that his audience is interested in that option, maybe he’ll provide it. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > If any professional podcasters are reading this, they might have to be helped off their fainting couches right about now. 😉 Podcasts, except for really low grade, down-and-dirty ones (which I do not listen to) are actually very carefully produced and edited. There should not be any “um”s or “well”s, digressions are often edited out, and a good podcaster begins with a structured outline, talking points or questions, etc., and runs a tight ship. :rolleyes: You’ve missed the point. I’m not criticizing Harris’s podcasts, or any other, **by the standards of their own medium**. I’m sure (well, I’m readily taking your word for it) that as spoken conversations go, the ones you listen to are quite coherently and smoothly presented. The point is that **by the standards of a written scholarly article** , podcasts are inevitably going to be comparatively diffuse and meandering, and consequently less efficient and more time-consuming for someone who’s just interested in getting the information rather than consuming an entire infotainment performance. For example, I went to your link of the Harris/Hughes podcast and skipped around in a few places within its first half-hour, actually listening to no more than about two or three minutes of it. Here are several extraneous “filler” items that I found right off the bat, whose equivalents (if any) in written form I could have immediately skipped or skimmed much more easily than jumping back and forth in an audio recording: - Several seconds of NPR-ish intro music - Harris announcing the podcast title - Harris saying “Okay, a little housekeeping here” at timestamp 00:00:25, followed by some updates on plans for a live appearance in Australia and elsewhere that are irrelevant to the issues he plans to discuss with his guest - Harris saying “But, uh” at 00:00:51 - Harris saying “So, uh” at 00:01:18 - Harris’s seven-minute funding pitch (preceded by more music) - Harris saying “Because, you know” at 00:15:13 - Harris saying “I think it’s, it’s four, right?” and Hughes saying “Yeah, I think four in Quillette” at 00:15:18 All of that, plus Harris’s own very draggy and pause-filled speaking style, is just pointless padding from the point of view of someone who simply wants to learn about the issues. (And no, I don’t think that chipmunking the broadcast at 1.5x is significantly going to reduce that padding burden, though I bet it makes the speakers sound pretty hilarious.) **Coherent expository writing, _pax_ Socrates, is always going to be more efficient at conveying information to intelligent readers than spoken dialogue is.** So go splash some cold water on the faces of your fainting professional podcasters and tell them to wake up to some inconvenient facts about the nature of literacy vis-a-vis conversation. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > It seems evident to me that podcasts are increasingly the present and future in terms of bringing complex issues to a much wider audience than in the past. That’s fine, but it doesn’t change or refute my point. Podcasts are kind of a modern hybrid of the traditional Sunday sermon and the traditional instructive popular lecture. Audiences used to (and some still do) go in person once a week or so to a place of worship to hear their clergyperson expound some moral and theological reflections, generally intertwined with the issues of the day and cultural themes. They would also go in person now and then to a public hall or place of worship to hear a visiting lecturer or missionary talk about foreign cultures or an exploring expedition or some cool science topic. Podcasters like Harris have simply taken over to some extent the popular preacher/lecturer roles combining infotainment with moral uplift. Nothing at all wrong with that, and more power to them. But the podcast format as filtered through listeners’ memories is not going to disseminate meaningful understanding of “complex issues” among general audiences any more efficiently or accurately than the traditional sermon/lecture formats have always done. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1653 "2018-08-03T21:33:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, why not make your wishes known to the podcast producer? Plenty of other audio shows/podcasts **do** provide transcripts after broadcasting/publishing their audio version. If Harris knows that his audience is interested in that option, maybe he’ll provide it. I have actually done that already, through Patreon messaging (which presumably carries more weight than an email from a free-riding listener). > [@Kimstu](#): > > The point is that **by the standards of a written scholarly article** , podcasts are inevitably going to be comparatively diffuse and meandering, and consequently less efficient and more time-consuming for someone who’s just interested in getting the information rather than consuming an entire infotainment performance. (I bristle at the “infotainment” characterization, but I’ll address that below.) I just don’t accept this. “Less efficient and more time-consuming”? Maybe, if you have all the time you like to sit in your brown leather chair in your home library (replete with ladders), pipe by your side. I actually have relatively little time in the day I can spend just sitting and looking at something, whether it’s a book or a screen—and I prefer to spend most of that time doing interactive stuff like this very post (I lamented on a SDMB thread a while back that I found myself unable to keep up with even the most buzzed-about, critically-acclaimed TV shows for this reason). I have learned a great deal from not only Sam’s podcast but others like The Partially-Examined Life (which features four former philosophy Ph.D. students, plus occasional guests, chewing over dense philosophical treatises), and all of it was while I was cooking, cleaning, caring for my special-needs kids, or driving. So try MORE efficient and LESS time-consuming. > [@Kimstu](#): > > (And no, I don’t think that chipmunking the broadcast at 1.5x is significantly going to reduce that padding burden, though I bet it makes the speakers sound pretty hilarious.) You are, again, demonstrating your ignorance in this area. [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-zorn-speed-listening-podcasts-audio-perspec-0721-jm-20170720-column.html](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-zorn-speed-listening-podcasts-audio-perspec-0721-jm-20170720-column.html) > [@](#): > > I’m an enthusiastic user of the accelerated playback option for podcasts and audiobooks. Modern digital compression software allows me to listen to, say, an hourlong episode of “This American Life” in just 30 minutes, with the pitch of the voices normalized to eliminate the “chipmunk” effect. It does appear to be almost perfectly gendered as to whether it is “okay” to listen to stuff sped up. Some of the women who weigh in speak to what I was talking about in terms of fainting couches, like this bit from NPR’s Alix Spiegel: > [@](#): > > What listeners should know is that the producers have spent truly absurd amounts of time locked in rooms far from sunshine and wind and any hint of nature or the outside world or the people they love best. They do this not because it makes financial sense — it doesn’t — but because they harbor in their hearts the idea that if they are careful enough with their work they will genuinely touch someone in their heart and help them to feel or understand something that they did not feel or understand before. So when you listen on double time it’s a little bit like taking someone’s hopes and dreams and sincere best efforts and crushing them under the heel of your boot like a cockroach that didn’t realize soon enough that you just turned on the kitchen light. But if you are cool with that, sure, go ahead! Listen on double time! That way you can crush the dreams of idealistic radio producers twice as fast!" I’m more, I guess, with my bro Ira Glass: > [@](#): > > We’re not artists. We’re reporters. Careful reporters. Obsessive reporters. But just reporters. People say stuff to us, we choose the best parts, put the quotes in an order, add some script for context and throw a little plinky music underneath. Double speed is fine. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Podcasters like Harris have simply taken over to some extent the popular preacher/lecturer roles combining infotainment with moral uplift. > > Nothing at all wrong with that, and more power to them. I’m not sure if there’s a term for this maneuver of referring to something disdainfully and dismissively but then saying “nothing wrong with that” (or “it’s fine for what it is”), but this is a superlative example. Calling Sam’s podcast “infotainment” just drips with condescension at least, or even outright derision. By your lights, then, aren’t the following also “infotainment”? —A Ken Burns/Lynn Nozick documentary —A TNC cover story in The Atlantic —PBS Newshour —An evening lecture, held at a university but advertised and open to the public, by a visiting scholar on gravity waves or the evolution of Romance languages (these are both examples of actual lectures I have attended at my alma mater) ---
**Author:** ![Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reindeer_flotilla/32/3024_2.png) [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reindeer_Flotilla)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1654 "2018-08-03T21:48:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > By your lights, then, aren’t the following also “infotainment”? > > —A Ken Burns/Lynn Nozick documentary > —A TNC cover story in The Atlantic > —PBS Newshour > —An evening lecture, held at a university but advertised and open to the public, by a visiting scholar on gravity waves or the evolution of Romance languages (these are both examples of actual lectures I have attended at my alma mater) Well for one thing those examples aren’t pushing decades-old debunked racist crap, but do keep with the false equivalences if that helps you rationalize your way through the day! ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1655 "2018-08-03T22:55:10Z")
Nothing encapsulates the OP’s intellectual laziness and susceptibility to specious inferences than this admission: > [@SlackerInc](#): > > He sounded sure enough that I am going to assume he has his facts straight unless and until I see counter-evidence, but you’re obviously under no obligation to do the same. Multiple problems are revealed here. 1. He assumes a speaker has a lock on the truth because he _sounds_ confident. Well I’ll be. Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that someone who is serious about learning about a subject will not be prone to such moronic assumptions; they will critically engage their frontal lobe instead of being swayed by how someone sounds. 2. He says he’s not going to revise that assumption until he sees counter evidence. That’s nice and all, except we know he isn’t going to go looking for that evidence like a true intellectually curious person would do, as that would require actively searching out information, reading it, and mulling it over thoughtfully. And who has time for that? Not he. So others are going to have to do that do that work and then spoon feed him. 3. He sees nothing embarrassing and pathetic about any of this, hence him flat out admitting this is how his brain reaches its conclusions. Take folks like **SlackerInc** , multiply him by a few million, and there’s your answer to why we essentially why we have an idiot in the WH right now. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1656 "2018-08-04T00:02:52Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Maybe, if you have all the time you like to sit in your brown leather chair in your home library (replete with ladders), pipe by your side.) Einstein once said something along the lines of “you can’t learn something without a pad of paper and a pencil.” Of course, he didn’t have your Scandinavian heritage, so maybe it was harder for him. Yeah, actually learning things takes time. That sucks. Of course, it’s much faster to just get an entirely superficial understanding of things and just think you know a lot. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1657 "2018-08-04T02:08:35Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > 1. He assumes a speaker has a lock on the truth because he _sounds_ confident. Well I’ll be. Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that someone who is serious about learning about a subject will not be prone to such moronic assumptions; they will critically engage their frontal lobe instead of being swayed by how someone sounds. > > 2. He says he’s not going to revise that assumption until he sees counter evidence. That’s nice and all, except we know he isn’t going to go looking for that evidence like a true intellectually curious person would do, as that would require actively searching out information, reading it, and mulling it over thoughtfully. And who has time for that? Not he. So others are going to have to do that do that work and then spoon feed him. > > 3. He sees nothing embarrassing and pathetic about any of this, hence him flat out admitting this is how his brain reaches its conclusions. > > Take folks like **SlackerInc** , multiply him by a few million, and there’s your answer to why we essentially why we have an idiot in the WH right now. 1. and 2) No, I acknowledged that I don’t know for sure that he’s right and essentially invited anyone, crowdsourcewise, to demonstrate otherwise. Again, if everyone is supposed to double-check every source within an inch of its life before even posting about it, this board loses much of its purpose. If you think I’ haven’t done meticulous reading through sources to provide cites, you missed, or are willfully ignoring, the whole tangent about school funding. (EE would prefer you not dig back into that.) And no one, not a single person on Earth, fact-checks every bit of information they read or hear. It’s not humanly possible, and who’s to say the sources you turned to to check them are right? You may as well become a solipsist if you go down that road. 1. Except for, you know, voting for Hillary in the primaries and the general, donating to her campaign, wearing her campaign shirts and buttons, putting her sign (and those of other Democrats) in my yard, and participating in GOTV for Democrats as I do every two years. Close, though! ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1658 "2018-08-04T02:31:02Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > 1. and 2) No, I acknowledged that I don’t know for sure that he’s right and essentially invited anyone, crowdsourcewise, to demonstrate otherwise. Again, if everyone is supposed to double-check every source within an inch of its life before even posting about it, this board loses much of its purpose. If you think I’ haven’t done meticulous reading through sources to provide cites, you missed, or are willfully ignoring, the whole tangent about school funding. (EE would prefer you not dig back into that.) It seems that like Harris you are still under the mistaken impression that others will support you by the next bump… It has not worked that way. Like when Harris posted the unpublished interactions with Chomsky and others, expecting that most would see that he came ahead against them when most concluded otherwise. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > And no one, not a single person on Earth, fact-checks every bit of information they read or hear. It’s not humanly possible, and who’s to say the sources you turned to to check them are right? You may as well become a solipsist if you go down that road. We know already that you are inept at using Google, so that is not a surprise. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > 1. Except for, you know, voting for Hillary in the primaries and the general, donating to her campaign, wearing her campaign shirts and buttons, putting her sign (and those of other Democrats) in my yard, and participating in GOTV for Democrats as I do every two years. Close, though! I’m beginning to think that many racialists that want to think that they are against what Trump represents do use this fig leaf a lot. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2018, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1659 "2018-08-04T12:15:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > 1. and 2) No, I acknowledged that I don’t know for sure that he’s right and essentially invited anyone, crowdsourcewise, to demonstrate otherwise. Again, if everyone is supposed to double-check every source within an inch of its life before even posting about it, this board loses much of its purpose. If you think I’ haven’t done meticulous reading through sources to provide cites, you missed, or are willfully ignoring, the whole tangent about school funding. (EE would prefer you not dig back into that.) > > And no one, not a single person on Earth, fact-checks every bit of information they read or hear. It’s not humanly possible, and who’s to say the sources you turned to to check them are right? You may as well become a solipsist if you go down that road. This might be believable if you had the slightest interest in criticizing incorrect and foolish statements when made by Harris, Pinker, or others you admire. Or had the slightest interest in challenging your own preconceived notions about race and intelligence. Or recognized that your pride in your own ethnicity may be connected to your belief that your own ethnicity (along with, perhaps, token other preferred ethnicities) has superior genetic features on average. But you haven’t shown any willingness in these things, which make us doubt that you have any interest in actual debate, rather than lecture and witnessing. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1660 "2018-08-05T00:10:42Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Let’s stick to the issues of the discussion and omit commentary regarding one’s perception of the traits of other posters. > > [/Moderating] Sorry. Too little sleep. I thought I was in GD or Elections. This Note was not appropriate. [/Not Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=82) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=84)