Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame)

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@SlackerInc

Your transparent envy is noted. Hey, don’t sweat it: not everyone can be three sigmas above average! I’m sure you are both very talented in your own special ways. <pat pat>

If it weren’t for Mr. Sexual Harassment over there, you’d be the saddest poster on this board, man. And it’s still cutting it close.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

Sam Harris has deleted his Patreon. Why? Because he’s upset that it has banned “several prominent content creators”, and that those bannings were brought on by “political bias”. No points for guessing that those banned (Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yiannopolous, James Allsup) were “alt-right”, i.e. fucking neo-nazis. At this point, I think it’s fair to consider this the trash taking itself out. Maybe we can convince Jordan Peterson to take the same principled stand.

[SlackerInc]

So he took a financial hit to defend the rights of people he disagrees with politically. Sounds courageous and principled, the kind of thing the ACLU used to do (the Nazis in Skokie) when I fell in love with that organization. (Now they are just another left wing activist org.)

[SlackerInc]

Oh, and thanks for alerting me to this. I am going to give Sam a few bucks right now to reward him for doing the right thing.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

“Defend the rights of people he disagrees with politically”

Do you have any idea how stupid you sound right now? A private platform has decided they’d rather not enable neo-nazis. Nobody’s “rights” are being abridged.

[CarnalK]

@SlackerInc

Oh, and thanks for alerting me to this. I am going to give Sam a few bucks right now to reward him for doing the right thing.

I’m sure your wife will be very pleased with you wasting money to score points in an internet argument.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@CarnalK

I’m sure your wife will be very pleased with you wasting money to score points in an internet argument.

This sack of human failure is married?! I don’t know whether to feel sadder for me for not having that shit figured out yet or for his wife!

[SlackerInc]

Married, four kids, nice apartment, nice car, 70” 4K TV, only have to work a few hours a week. I’m winning the game of life!

[SlackerInc]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

A private platform has decided

Oh hai, it’s Rand Paul! (For those who don’t get the reference, he insisted that Southern lunch counters were private businesses who had the right to refuse service to anyone they damn well pleased.)

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

Well gosh, good thing “Nazi” isn’t a fuckin’ protected class.

[Kimstu]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Well gosh, good thing “Nazi” isn’t a fuckin’ protected class.

Furthermore, what Patreon is banning the alt-righters from is providing the content that Patreon markets to the public. Patreon’s not saying that alt-righters or anybody else is banned from consuming their content by browsing the site and donating money (nor do I think they should be).

A more accurate Southern-lunch-counter analogy would be if black customers at segregated lunch counters were demanding that they be allowed to sell, say, their own special-recipe peanut butter sandwiches or baked beans or whatever as part of the lunch counter’s menu. There is nothing in civil rights legislation that would validate such a demand.

[Elmore]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

Well gosh, good thing “Nazi” isn’t a fuckin’ protected class.

Sargon of Akkad isn’t a nazi.

[Kimstu]

@Elmore

Sargon of Akkad isn’t a nazi.

“Reactionary misogynist” isn’t a protected class either.

[Elmore]

@Kimstu

“Reactionary misogynist” isn’t a protected class either.

He isn’t a nazi though. That’s the main point here. Let’s all get on the same page and agree he’s not a nazi before arguing whether Patreon should ban him, or whether Harris is right to take any lessons from that

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Elmore

Sargon of Akkad isn’t a nazi.

Sure. He just:

• hangs around with and offers a platform to nazis
• has this weird tendency of offering nazis a platform for debate and then losing badly, which is both embarrassing and really quite dangerous
• Has made it clear that he thinks nazis and the left are morally equivalent
• regurgitates nazi talking points like “cultural marxism” and “heather hayes died of a heart attack”
• Is beloved by nazis, who think he’s helping them
• has a whole fuckin’ lot of Nazi fans

So at best, he’s a neo-reactionary asshole who happens to be incredibly useful for Nazi rhetoric. At worst, he’s basically half a step up from BlackPigeonSpeaks in terms of secretly trying to “redpill” his audience on nazism. I know he calls himself a “classic liberal”, but make no mistake - Andrew Anglin (of The Daily Stormer) is 100% right when he says:

I have now pretty well agreed not to argue with Sargon of Akkad any further, as I don’t really see any point to it, and feel that on some level he is leading people in our direction (as we are the obvious conclusion of reactionary thought), so there is no reason to try and obliterate him.

Do we actually have any given reason why Patreon banned him? Or are we just going on hearsay and assumptions? Because without an actual reason, we have nothing to go on. For all we know, they banned him becauseh he uploaded a video screaming “NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER” over and over again.

[Kimstu]

@Elmore

He isn’t a nazi though. That’s the main point here. Let’s all get on the same page and agree he’s not a nazi before arguing whether Patreon should ban him,

I don’t think that’s actually the main point here. The main point here, ISTM, is whether it’s unfair discrimination for Patreon to refuse to carry specific content that it disapproves of on whatever non-protected-class ideological grounds, whether it be anti-Nazism, anti-racism, or what have you.

And AFAICT it is not. It’s Patreon’s choice to decide what kind of content they want to market to the public.

To return to the lunch-counter analogy, suppose a lunch counter that sourced its menu items from different food providers decided to stop carrying any items with nuts in them, because of allergens and toxins in nuts that many customers want to avoid or find dangerous. Any food provider bitching and moaning about how the lunch counter should be required to go on selling their own special nut bread doesn’t have a leg to stand on as far “unfair discrimination” is concerned.

In fact, that could be a new slogan for Patreon: “We Reserve the Right to Exclude Toxic Nuts from Our Content”. I’ll even waive the royalties.

[SlackerInc]

@CarnalK

I’m sure your wife will be very pleased with you wasting money to score points in an internet argument.

I genuinely want Sam to be rewarded (both in a moral sense and in a behaviorist one) for doing a courageous and financially costly thing here. That it might have stuck in BPC’s craw for inadvertently spurring this donation, is just a pleasant bonus.

@Budget_Player_Cadet

“Defend the rights of people he disagrees with politically”

Do you have any idea how stupid you sound right now? A private platform has decided they’d rather not enable neo-nazis. Nobody’s “rights” are being abridged.

I guess you think John Stuart Mill is “stupid” as well. :dubious:

Oregon State University

Our merely social intolerance, kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion…And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their thoughts and interests to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until then; while that which would strengthen and enlarge men’s minds, free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.

Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil, should consider in the first place, that in consequence of it there is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that such of them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be prevented from spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtile and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much, and even more indispensable, to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There have been, and may again be, great individual thinkers, in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere, an intellectually active people. Where any people has made a temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox speculation was for a time suspended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so remarkable. Never when controversy avoided the subjects which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of thinking beings.

Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an opinion, even though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and may justly incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal, to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely possible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the misrepresentation as morally culpable; and still less could law presume to interfere with this kind of controversial misconduct. With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely, invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential, and nobody but themselves feels much interest in seeing justice done them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to themselves, nor if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion. It is, however, obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candor, or malignity, bigotry or intolerance of feeling manifest themselves, but not inferring these vices from the side which a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our own; and giving merited honor to every one, whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favor. This is the real morality of public discussion; and if often violated, I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who conscientiously strive towards it.

[iiandyiiii]

@SlackerInc

Married, four kids, nice apartment, nice car, 70” 4K TV, only have to work a few hours a week. I’m winning the game of life!

Counterpoint – people who are truly “winning the game of life” feel no need (and recognize how childish and pointless it is) to brag (anonymously, with or without evidence) about their achievements/good qualities. By your posts, you are an immature, racist weirdo, but I’m rather skeptical that you’re “winning at the game of life”, unless your goal is to make sure people online think of you as an immature racist weirdo.

[SlackerInc]

This part of the Mill I quoted, BTW, is Sam Harris to a T:

Among them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtile and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think

.

[iiandyiiii]

@SlackerInc

This part of the Mill I quoted, BTW, is Sam Harris to a T:

.

I’m sure that’s what Sam thinks of himself, and he’s happy that fanboys like you agree with him about himself, but he’s fully capable of saying really, really stupid things (as demonstrated in this thread, among many other places) due to his own ignorance or bias. His ego and self-regard truly are spectacular, on the other hand. In those qualities he really does stand out as a giant.