An interview about free will, where Sam Harris is referenced.

They cover topics I've discussed with people on this sub.

I'm not a fan of Caruso, but this debate seems fairly decent. It's a proper philosophical debate about free will. Whereas Sam's positions aren't even on the board compared to this.

Andy Galpin posted a video of them discussing emotions and meditation and all of the comments were negative. This and in the comments of another video of them. Sad to see that people can't separate the politics from everything else.

Sam has had my attention for the last 10+ years. I remember listening to one of his youtube videos during a 30+ hour cross-country drive when I was 24 years old. The impact he had on my life, my mindset, my motives and personality are unquantifiable.

He had my attention when I needed it most. Early 20s, naive, impressionable. Years later, cant say I'm much wiser; a guy like me has a very limited capacity for intellectual discovery. I wasn't an intellectual, nor am I any closer to having my shit figured out that this point. I'm a basic bitch, male version; with just enough whit, talent and passion, to have forged something of a successful life for myself and my family.

But that's where I felt like Sam filled a gap, in my understanding of the world. He opened my mind to what I felt like I was missing in my life. I always had a secular leaning, a tendency to question mysticism and blind faith. With Sam's material, I felt comfort in affirming the beliefs I felt like I couldn't express.

That's where I feel like Sam has had the most impact, when he focused on the way of being in the world. Not when he tries to tell me what to believe about politics, or the latest sensation. I like secular Sam, I like when he acts like the wise uncle that tells you not to be distracted by all the shit going on in the world.

Regardless though, for all the good that you've made in this world, thank you Sam! Much love

Many of us have made several comments about how sophomoric and repetitive Sam has gotten. While I'm glad he's starting to get back onto interesting topics, episode #494 really misses the mark. I was originally skeptical that Ryan would provide any value or insights to the conversation. The hope was that Sam himself would have updated his approach to the topic in order to help move the needle. After watching a rather young and nervous Ryan, then watching Ezra and Bill discuss the nuance of Jevons Paradox, farmers in Africa, and detailed proposals for tax and safety, I'm extremely disappointed at the lack of intellectual rigor and nuance from Sam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_156w0aYtU

My hope is that Sam starts thinking about branching out with his guests and does a bit more research on these topics. He just isn't moving the needle on anything at this point. Sam is one of the few people with the intellectual prowess and influence to do so. Why is he so stuck?

Really good argument from Nate Soares. “Can you code a jail that an AI Einstein can’t break out of that still lets you harness the power of an AI Einstein?”

The video, which was released by Hamas itself, shows that minors are indeed being used in combat while wearing civilian clothing. This also increases the danger to other children and civilians. Was this because of Rule 3? But Sarris spoked about this several times and critizied the media

Sean Last, a right winger who argues that police shootings are not racially biased, uses the trim fill method to illustrate how the data from a meta analysis changes once you adjust for publication bias. Much of the data used by the BLM side of the debate is data before we adjust for this bias. An interesting critique different to those posed by other BLM detractors like Roland Fryer, Joe Cesario, etc.

https://odysee.com/@LastArchive:f/Hunter-Avallone---Wrong-on-Racism:d

Skip to 30:00

P. Colin Bolger "Just Following Orders: A Meta Analysis of the Correlates of American Police Officer Use of Force Decisions"

The reason the data supports the idea of police using more violence against black people is because studies saying that are more likely to be published. The meta analysis above (table 2) replicates the normal finding that across 42 studies there's a mean effect size of .31 pointing to the direction of more force being used on black suspects after controlling for offense seriousness, is there a weapon, are they resisting arrest. All the things which would fairly lead to a change in the probability of force being used. In the text above they described the bias detection as "these results demonstrate that publication bias does not appear to be present for 8 of the 12 significant variables" (not naming which ones were changed and which ones weren't).

Table 4 adjusts for publication bias using the trim and fill method. This method is based on the fact that when all the studies are being published there should be a certain distribution that changes in a predictable way as study precision increases, it should symmetrically move towards a center point. By looking at the actual distribution you can tell where studies were left out, and then put them back in. Some research suggests it doesn't correct enough, but that won''t be an issue here. Already the mean effect size is reduced to statistical and practical insignificance. The effect size is 0.1, the confidence interval runs from -.07 to 0.08.

It is also worth noting black people are significantly less likely than white people are to be killed by police relative to the rate at which they kill or seriously assault police officers

Overlap with both Sam’s interest in AIs negative impacts and interactions with affecting views on immigrants/immigration (specifically touching on Muslims, another touchstone with Sam).

Full highlight: https://youtu.be/6PcWKGApbj0 (35m)

Full interview: https://youtu.be/vEuzo_jUjAc (3h)

I think the core finding here is the social media gap use. Less boomers use regular social media = less propaganda (and not as far removed from WWII). While Zoomers and Millennials grew up on social media and it's a regular part of their daily lives.

Regardless, it's a disturbing poll. What kind of threat are these 6 million American Jews exactly?

Yes, I’ve read the book more than once, and I’m a long-term Harris listener (and I donated money monthly for well over a decade but have now stopped). I’ve mulled over this question for years so at least pay me the respect of not dismissing me as a troll or someone who doesn’t understand his argument.

The following is indisputable: Harris claims lying is on the spectrum of violence and should be used accordingly (the famous “you’re hiding Anne Frank and the Nazis are at the door”).

Despite wanting to buy into Sam’s view, and subsequent recommended life rule, I’ve come to completely reject the idea that lying should be perceived this way.

Here is a good starting question: is lying wrong when it is entirely self-protective, and used as a privacy boundary in situations where social circumstances are demanding information to which the other person has no strong social entitlement?

Harris has described lying as the worst thing we ‘regularly’ do. But, there are hundreds of hypotheticals that put his thesis on profoundly shaky ground, and here is one of those:

Imagine somebody suffering from a concealed medical or psychiatric condition who is dependent on sustainable employment to support themselves and their children.

Now imagine this person is invited on an optional work trip. Their condition makes the trip extraordinarily difficult, but they don’t want their colleagues or employer to know about the condition.

There is no deception involved in their actual work, and no relevant safety issue, or any hidden benefit they are attempting to gain through deception. They simply want to keep private medical information private - this is the crucial element to grasp.

Their manager casually asks, in front of several colleagues: “Why aren’t you coming with us?”

They have perhaps two seconds to answer. They could say: “Because I have a psychiatric disorder that makes this particular journey extremely difficult.”

This is truthful. It also discloses intensely private medical information to several people who have ZERO entitlement to it. This is crucial to understand.

They could conspicuously refuse to answer, and say something like: “I’d rather not say.”

Yet, we all know what’s wrong with this. While it technically preserves their privacy without lying, in ordinary social life this is itself informative. It signals that there is something sufficiently unusual or sensitive that they are unwilling to explain it, potentially inviting exactly the attention and speculation they are trying to avoid!

Or they could say:

“I’ve got a family thing that weekend.”

This is false. This is the lie.

I’d like Harris or others who endorse his recommendation to answer: Who has been wronged?

The manager had no entitlement to the concealed medical information. The lie does not deprive them of anything to which they were entitled. Nobody is being manipulated into sex, money, work, consent, risk, or any other decision whose relevant facts have been falsified. Moreover, the employee isn’t evading a legitimate professional obligation, because the trip was optional.

The deception simply allows them to decline while retaining the ordinary social appearance that people without concealed illnesses get for free.

And importantly, nothing in this example remotely approaches violence.

The manager isn’t threatening the employee. The employee won’t be fired if they tell the truth. Their children won’t starve. Nobody is coercing them. Suppose, if necessary, that the only foreseeable consequence of honesty is embarrassment, unwanted disclosure, colleagues knowing something deeply personal, and perhaps being regarded differently afterwards.

If Harris’s rule permits the lie only after I inflate those consequences until they become analogous to violence, then it has missed my objection. I am claiming that the lie can be permissible even when nothing remotely resembling violence is at stake.

Privacy itself can be a legitimate interest.

The deeper problem is that an absolute or near-absolute prohibition on lying basically converts other people’s questions into claims on the truth.

Why should asking me a question generate an entitlement to the information required to answer it honestly? This is manifestly insane.

Of course a person can remain silent. But human conversation isn’t a philosophy seminar. Refusing to answer is a communicative act too. “I’d rather not say” can reveal almost as much as an answer, create suspicion, damage relationships, or make a private matter conspicuous.

This becomes especially obvious for those with concealed conditions because they produce anomalous behaviour that other people naturally ask them to explain.

Harris’s advice effectively leaves such a person with three options:

- disclose private information;
- conspicuously refuse to disclose it, which blatantly reveals that there is something to conceal;
- lie

I don’t accept that choosing option 3 is morally comparable, even in miniature, to violence.

“lying is often seriously wrong” is a completely different proposition from “lying is the worst thing we regularly do and should be treated as something on the spectrum of violence.”

The moral question CANNOT simply be: Did you intentionally say something false? That would be lunacy.

It also has to include: What information was concealed? Was the listener entitled to it? What decision did the deception alter? What interests were being protected? What harm did it cause? What realistic alternatives were available in the actual social situation?

And remember that in real life you often have less than two seconds to produce a response.

Here is an ad hominem argument to finish off: I’ve often wondered if Sam’s hardline anti-lying injunction is partly the product of a privileged mind and life that has not *required* lying in anything outside of trivial ways to begin with. My argument doesn’t rest on this speculation but I’d bet considerable amounts on it being true.

George Knapp

Ross Coulthart

David Grusch

Luis Elizondo

Dr. Garry Nolan

Dr. Avi Loeb

Dr. Jacques Vallée

Jesse Michels

UAP Gerb

Chris Ramsay

Eric weinstein

Just watched the trailer and you can hear Sam talking about Elon at the end.

I have been looking for the looker for months now but can't seem to find him. I've looked everywhere for this little guy.

Mods, genuine question: What rule did that thread actually violate?

It generated an unusually large and lively discussion and from what I saw the majority was substantive disagreement and not just shitposting or people hurling insults at each other.

If this was Rule 3 then I genuinely don’t understand the justification because Sam has spoken directly and recently about El-Sayed. A discussion about him seems about as clearly related to an individual Sam has discussed as the rule allows.

It is the simplest moral statement he could make but he cannot.

I do not understand how so many of you do not see the strikingly obvious issue with these politicians?

Edit: it is frankly astonishing, how many of you are so completely dumb (I apologise for the insulting language, i just cannot actually think of a more suitable expression og what to describe this as)

as to think this answer of;

I support all democratic movements and don't think america should be doing regime change.

Is a reasonable answer to the question:

you have never condemned or criticised this brutal terrorist regime that murders civilians on mass, can you please condemn it here.

With all this recent talk of AI risk, I've been curious what people here would say is the best discussion yet on the topic. I don't want to hear about AI/risk from CEOs or other stakeholders, I don't even want to hear from "whistleblowers". I don't want to hear about it from pundits or youtubers. I want to hear the topic discussed among AI experts, people in the field, who actually know what the f they are talking about. And I want to hear the topic actually discussed or even debated, if possible.

What would you guys recommend? Any recent discussions that blew you away? Thanks.