Go back hundred years or more and you would find firm believers in eugenics etc. in the academic scene in many universities with really bad societal ideas. Now there aren't anymore those kind of "scientific racists" as in the 19th Century and early 20th Century, so I think is more of a topic of PC scaremongering and something dear to the few real racists among us.Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. So, in a societal sense, is research into, say, racial IQ differences worth it? — RogueAI
Or maybe deep in the bowels of Google's servers, my comments here are linked to other aspects of my online identity, and they factor that into my Youtube suggestions. — fishfry
Harris is superficially clever but lacking in depth; and ultimately intellectually unsatisfying. — fishfry
Yes, he certainly goes on to explain what he means.Thats the first sentence of a paragraph, which explains what exactly he meant by that. — DingoJones
Perhaps you disagree with it, but thats not the same as “dumb”.
The combination of considering beliefs to be the moral and practical equivalent of actions AND a justification for torture is dumb. As in such a pernicious idea that goes against the core values of Western liberalism (not in the sense of conservative against liberal) that it is actually more aligned with the worst of Islamic fundamentalism than the culture it is supposed to be defending. We are not just attacking freedom of speech, with the combination of these ideas, we are attacking freedom of thought and belief. Something radical Islam, the supposed justification for this radical shift in values is supposedly against. I think that is dumb. I think it is dumb that he doesn't notice this, though, yes, he makes an intelligent, though flawed defense of his position. I also think it is dumb that he did not take responsibility for the problems created by his ideas, which were pointed out by many readers, and simply denied the conclusion. Saying one does not believe the conclusions that can logically be deduced from one's positions without explaining how the deduction is incorrect is dumb. Because he should know how people can use texts for their own ends, including violence. He should know that factions within the government like torture and would love to have an apologist for the justification of extending the use of torture to people based on beliefs.What is it about that you think is dumb? — DingoJones
But it's essentially a puerile observation. Many volumes have been written across the ages about the meaning of the Eucharist. Harris offers no scholarly insight into the practice. And say what you will, there are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. You can't dismiss their earnest and heartfelt beliefs with pancake jokes. — fishfry
but Google does a lot of business with the government and I'm sure they have access to data they shouldn't have. Or they could use AI to cross-reference my writing style, that would be doable with only publicly-obtained data. Writing style analysis is pretty advanced these days. — fishfry
Google Analytics, a product used to log visitors to websites that integrates with the company’s ad-targeting systems, was found on almost 70 percent of sites. DoubleClick, a dedicated ad-serving system from Google, was found on close to 50 percent of sites. The top five most common tracking tools were all Google-owned.
Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread
And I say this as someone who is generally very much behind the idea of something like a "moral science", but I think Harris has its foundations completely wrong, and those should be questioned; but questioning it doesn't mean we can't get on with doing actual good in the meanwhile. — Pfhorrest
What is the foundations that Harris gets wrong? — DingoJones
Sam Harris is in my opinion the absolute dumbest of the lot. He's just a stupid man that is — fishfry
What they’ve told me is that Harris wants to just give an operational definition of “good” as “conducive to human flourishing” or something along those lines, and then get on with figuring out what is conducive to human flourishing, putting aside any further arguments about whether “conducive to human flourishing” really works as a definition of “good”. — Pfhorrest
Those questions are still worth looking into, and can be looked into simultaneously with doing a “science of morality” that is just investigating what causes human flourishing, just like we can still do science simultaneously with doing philosophy of science and don’t have to either wait for the latter to be finished before we do the former, or give up on the latter entirely since we can start doing the former without it. — Pfhorrest
Dismissing religion as superstitious claptrap makes some people feel good about themselves. But if we are to claim to be philosophers or "public intellectuals," we must give a thoughtful, intellectually satisfying account of those 1.2 billion. This, Harris does not do. — fishfry
To me, the most rational response to religion is not to accept or reject it, but to try to understand the human need that religion is attempting to address, and then find ways to meet that need that work for that person. — Hippyhead
Depends how you define secularism. I would argue that using the scientific method doesn't mean that you are a firm proponent of metaphysical naturalism. But of course for those Christians that have problems with evolution or science in general are one type of Christian believers who think they are the true believers and others are perhaps only CINOs, "Christians in name only".Secularism has given us evolution and cosmology and this has gone down extremely badly with many religious, especially Christians, especially in America. — Kenosha Kid
Depends how you define secularism. I would argue that using the scientific method doesn't mean that you are a firm proponent of metaphysical naturalism. — ssu
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