Next Decoding Source Material: Sam Harris
Added 2023-12-15 02:40:09 +0000 UTCYes that's right it's time.
A full length Decoding of Sam Harris based on an interview conducted by Chris Williamson.
I think this interview does a good job of highlighting the duality of Sam.
It is certainly not as vapid as the Red Scare material.
After this we will take a trip into some unknown waters but Sam's on the docket for too long.
Let us know your thoughts!
(We are aiming to get this out before Christmas)
Comments
Genocide, terrorism, evil. All are capable, some are complicit - the innocent are plain to see, because they are mostly suffering or already dead. Measuring one level of hell against another serves only those that justify it. There really is nothing quite like a bit of old-fashioned indifference. You’re right to be angry.
Jason Trock
2023-12-23 06:13:06 +0000 UTCI’m about halfway through. I understand the wisdom behind realizing that we are always in the present and to be aware about spending too much of our time and attention in the past or future. But what if the present is painful or unpleasant or just plain dull? I wouldn’t fault a person imagining a future good event or reminiscing on a happy past one while they’re cleaning a hotel room, sitting in a prison cell, or doing extremely tedious paperwork at their job. If the happiest people are is before an expected good experience, is that such a bad thing? Since we have the capacity to imagine other worlds than the ones we are currently in, it seems we should at least acknowledge some of the benefits of that ability.
Linda Sears
2023-12-18 14:10:05 +0000 UTCRight, so just some good, old-fashioned, evil terrorism (and all) then 👍
NIALL DAVISON
2023-12-17 07:11:59 +0000 UTCGiven a person is a fan of Harris, it's fairly safe to assume they have no ability to examine the facts of the case with and open mind or with fairness. It's fairly safe to assume that they'll turn a blind eye to the evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt, Israel is committing genocide. Hamas has stated, in various language since it's inception, that it's quarrel is with Zionist Jews, not Jews because they're Jews. That the quarrel isn't due their being Jewish, but because the Zionists expelled them from their homes, killed their people and waged war against them, and because they're bent on taking over their holy places. That they would have had this quarrel regardless of the religion of the Zionists. So, not genocidal. As born out, for example, by the many Jews who've visited Gaza under Hamas rule in the spirit of justice and to whom Hamas has made no threat. Zionists, on the other hand, are followers of a political ideology that sought to create a Jewish state in Palestine. A necessary step in that creation was the ridding of Palestine of most of its indigenous people, because they weren't Jewish, by any means. Mass murder and terror against innocent civilians were employed and continue to be employed. This has generally been accompanied by the denial that Palestinians constitute a people, and thus the attempted erasure of them as a people, the destruction of any of their cultural heritage that isn't Jewish, the assassination of Palestinian poets, writers and thinkers. Years before Hamas existed. And now full on genocide, the cover story being going after Hamas, which is bullocks considering the war on hospitals, the forced starvation, the massive destruction of civic buildings, homes and lives. Also considering the many genocidal acts Israel did that long predate Hamas. To answer your question, I would describe Hamas's action as a counter-attack in a 75-year war, a defensive war on the Palestinian's part, and one in which civilians suffered the brunt and so perhaps Hamas didn't fully observe the requirement for proportionality & thereby committed a war crime. They say their intent was to take military POWs, so who knows.
Kat
2023-12-17 06:57:47 +0000 UTCJust out of curiosity, if Hamas are ‘not the party committing genocide,’ what noun would you use to replace the word genocide, to describe their actions?
NIALL DAVISON
2023-12-16 16:13:01 +0000 UTCYes it’s in Chris Williamsons Modern Wisdom feed.
Christopher Kavanagh
2023-12-16 01:40:14 +0000 UTCHe was never decoded. He was never in the gurometer.
Christopher Kavanagh
2023-12-16 01:39:46 +0000 UTCIt wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Chris was extremely boring and unoriginal but not as toxic as I was prepared for. It’s still amazing though to me that Sam is still so aligned with Douglas Murray.
TheRealEricWeinstein
2023-12-16 01:29:56 +0000 UTCI wish I believed in hell.* I wish there were a special place in hell for those who help with the chorus to the song of genocide**. It’s one thing to deny genocide (like Chomsky), it’s another to encourage it*** Harris keeps repeating all the time Israel (that wonderful bastion of western civilization and democracy confronting the evil savages) doesn’t target civilians. Who is he kidding?**** Good on you to decode what looks on the face of it to be one of his more innocuous interviews. I hope you roast him as hot at the non-existent baby Hamas***** didn’t throw into an oven.******* Not sure I’ll have the stomach to listen to it. My rant below. I apologize for burning your ears. Glad you’re finally getting to Harris. EDIT: adding a couple footnotes ----------------------------------------------------------------- *I’m an atheist too **Here’s John Mearsheimer laying out the case for genocide: https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/death-and-destruction-in-gaza. Song is referenced in footnote [18], Snopes checked the reference’s accuracy. Here’s Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp-CpWppw00. Here’s Raz Segal (Israeli national), director the MA program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies program at Stockton University in New Jersey: https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide. Here are 800 scholars saying it may be genocide: https://www.commondreams.org/news/legal-scholars-israel-genocide. ***What a freakin’ refrain of dehumanization coming out of Harris’s mouth, Muslims uniquely bad, must be eliminated, by first strike nuclear bomb if necessary. Israel a model of democracy and western civilization. Although maybe he’s right about it being the model, western civilization created the technology for industrialized murder under the Nazis. (I’m not making any claims regarding northern, eastern, southern, or any direction of the compass civilization as better) ****I suppose if you ignore the assassination of poets (Refaat Alareer, clearly targeted), scientists and academics (Dr. Sufyan Tayeh among others), journalists (Anas Al-Sharif, actually, his family but he got death threats from the IDF as well, Wael al-Dahdouh, his family was targeted too, some 60 or 80 in Gaza and several in Lebanon), doctors and other health workers (should I just list a couple out of the 100s?); I suppose if you ignore destruction of hospitals, schools and universities, civic buildings, and cultural heritage sites, torture and humiliation, the deliberate starvation & denial of water, fuel and health care to 2 million people, turning off electricity so that babies requiring ventilators just die (& rot in their hospital beds for weeks because their caretakers were forced to leave in haste), telling civilians to flee to designated “safe” areas then bombing them there… What bullocks. *****Oh yeah, Hamas threw some people of a building (Harris said). As I recall, their explanation was “personal vengeance”. That’s bad! No one should be thrown off a building without a fair trial******, ********. Then you look at the hostages filmed as Hamas turned them over to the Red Cross, carrying their little dog, some of them with friendly words and some not. And you look at the prisoners Israel freed, many reporting ill treatment, beatings, hands broken and assaults, some afraid to talk to the press because their families are threatened. What’s going on? Allegations by Israeli sources of lurid rape by Hamas, but thin on substance and no actual victims? Statements from IDF-associated investigators along the lines (I paraphrase a bit extremely) “sometime in the next decades the victims of Hamas rape will be willing to come forward)” Huh? Is there a propaganda war going on? Yeah, I can agree Hamas killed and sometimes targeted civilians, they’re evil terrorists & all, I feel bad for their victims, but you know, how does that compare to the erasure of a whole people as a people that’s been going on for 75 years, much of it predating Hamas? Hamas is not the party committing genocide. ******I’m against the death penalty anyway. But look, the human/civil/women’s rights organizations in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories have been protesting Hamas abuses like that since Hamas took power. What? There were rights advocates in Gaza under Hamas rule? Operating without being thrown in jail or murdered for criticizing the government? (Murdering critics is just one charge Harris lays against Muslims) (These human Gazan human rights organizations are, however, barely surviving the Israeli bombing, Raji Sourani, head of pchrgaza.org, is now in exile). Josh Paul, former US state department official, had some interesting things to say about what Israel does to human rights advocates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrb_cb6-rHI *******Notice I carefully didn't recommend Harris be burned as hot as child actually burned by Israeli settlers? That would be murder! https://www.cbsnews.com/news/suspected-jewish-extremists-burn-sleeping-palestinian-toddler-to-death-outrage/. Yeah, Harris would, of course, say the radical settlers are non-representative, which is true, but on the other hand they get the support and protection of the Israeli government. Gotta hand this one to him. You're right Harris! Not burning babies is representative of Hamas! ********No one deserves to be bulldozed alive, either: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/12/18/people-buried-alive-during-israeli-raid-on-gaza-hospital. No one deserves to be bulldozed alive in their homes and their bodies thrown on the trash heap with the rubble, just to make a wider space for Jews to pray: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughrabi_Quarter (sorry, Jews, I don't mean you asked for that or are to blame)
Kat
2023-12-15 23:26:22 +0000 UTCHaha. I had some “oh” thoughts on the location too
Chris Clark
2023-12-15 20:27:27 +0000 UTCMaybe he holds a grudge because she didn't breastfeed him for long enough? Sorry, this bad comment can be blamed on the scary Red Scare episode that warped my mind.
Linda Sears
2023-12-15 20:23:13 +0000 UTCI have never heard an interviewer ask Sam about his mother, Susan Harris. Dude, your mom created The Golden Girls, one of the most famous TV shows ever. How does this not come up in the telling of his back story?
Kevin Nyberg
2023-12-15 19:55:24 +0000 UTCI'd be interested in the motivation to decode Sam again, wasn't he already decoded, gurometrized, and then even came on for a Right To Reply? Is the thinking that the first round wasn't deep enough or representative or that he's changed signfiicantly? Or maybe just for the fun of it, that is also valid!
Josh Lemer
2023-12-15 19:45:30 +0000 UTCIs this somewhere available in podcast form? Could not find it in my podcatcher
mobitobi
2023-12-15 14:56:02 +0000 UTCOh probably. I'll give it a listen to make sure but it just feels like if chatgpt were ever going to perfect a human's response, Sam would be first (for better or worse)
Dr Badmouth
2023-12-15 12:41:49 +0000 UTCSo very representative? 😉
Christopher Kavanagh
2023-12-15 11:50:32 +0000 UTCOhhhh, this is going to be a controversial decoding. There are only two podcasts I pay a subscription for - Making Sense and Decoding The Gurus. Like me, I suspect a lot of DTG listeners are also Sam Harris fans. Sam definitely has his flaws and 'tribal' blind spots, but I think he is a source of good in the world, overall. I hope he takes up the right to reply offer (again) because I genuinely think he cares what you guys think of him. Can't wait for this one.
NIALL DAVISON
2023-12-15 10:33:26 +0000 UTCInfluencers are bad for society, and that includes Sam. Individuals are just so mired in their own worldview that they always turn out propagandists, apologists or activists about issues they are emotionally engaged in but have too little expert knowledge to accurately reflect upon.
Protagonist Science
2023-12-15 08:31:15 +0000 UTC4 minutes- ‘twitter is not the real world, we should spend more time in the real world ‘ 2 guys who make a living purely from online shenanigans
Diane Morrison
2023-12-15 06:25:53 +0000 UTCIs this film in the basement where Fight Club takes place?!
Eric Stern
2023-12-15 06:22:48 +0000 UTC3 hooours??? I’m putting the podcast version on 1.5 speed , let’s see how long I last
Diane Morrison
2023-12-15 06:21:49 +0000 UTCHe hates being quoted out of context yet this episode is a gold mine for out of context clips 😂
Logan Mayatte
2023-12-15 05:02:25 +0000 UTCDoes anyone else find it comical how buff the longform podcasters are?
Jonathan Crymes
2023-12-15 04:12:09 +0000 UTCOne of the few SH podcasts I skipped (mainly because in the last 3 years when you've heard one Sam harris guest appearance, you've heard them all
Dr Badmouth
2023-12-15 02:54:06 +0000 UTC
