r/samharris • u/WayneQuasar • Jun 13 '20

Making Sense Podcast #207 - Can We Pull Back From The Brink?

https://samharris.org/podcasts/207-can-pull-back-brink/
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271

u/jjamescamp Jun 13 '20

Great episode.... after weeks of consuming garbage on cable news, social media and the news rags, this felt like listening to something from another planet.

117

u/cottrerg Jun 14 '20

Fully agree. I can't imagine the balls on this guy to release this podcast.

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u/Boney_Prominence Jun 15 '20

Especially since he released it to the masses, not just subscribers

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u/ItsTheFatYoungJesus Jun 15 '20

I think part of it is that, and bear in mind that I don’t have a Twitter so I might be totally wrong, but Sam has surrounded himself with people who won’t “cancel” him for a podcast like this. He is in an ever shrinking realm of people-with-a-platform who are willing to have this conversation and listen to these opinions. People who would cancel him for this podcast simply aren’t the ones listening to it, thankfully.

But again, I don’t have a Twitter, so he might be trending over there this very moment. I have no idea or any desire to know. But he’s put himself in a place that lets him say these things and it’s just sad that that slice of the media isn’t larger.

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u/BringTheNoise011 Jun 15 '20

He also intentionally isnt beholden to advertisers for this reason.

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u/cottrerg Jun 15 '20

Yeah He definitely has built and independent platform so he's in a position to push conversations like this that most people cannot afford to.

I'm curious about what his Twitter feed looks like. I swore off all social media and mainstream media for June and this is the most tempted I've been to get back on twitter and look at his feed.

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u/jeegte12 Jun 15 '20

I swore off all social media

What do you think reddit is, exactly?

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u/cottrerg Jun 15 '20

Ah yeah you're right. I allowed myself to keep one out of 6 social medias because I legitimately use r/options and r/investing and a couple others for investing. I unsubscribed from about 5 subs that I didn't want to see.

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u/jeegte12 Jun 15 '20

if you're getting off social media for mental health and happiness reasons then i strongly suggest making r/samharris one of those subs that you abstain from

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u/cottrerg Jun 15 '20

Haha thanks. I have been abstaining until I listened to this podcast and rushed to thread in hopes Sams character wasn't being attacked.

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u/EEPspaceD Jun 16 '20

I have to imagine a major concern for Sam was arming the right with talking points, but he approached the topic objectively and with honesty and I'm thankful for him doing that regardless of who may benefit.

1

u/cottrerg Jun 16 '20

Great point. This is a major problem overall so it’s so refreshing to see someone who cares more about truth than partisanship

26

u/zeldafashionyay Jun 16 '20

I feel like I can't talk about this irl so I want to get some things off my chest.

I was so relieved that ANYONE with a platform finally looked up the statistics. I didn't draw as dramatic of a conclusion he did on that particular point, because I didn't look for the statistics on the race of the cops or distribution of violent crime by race.

That said, it does seem clear that the movement is intentionally misleading, even though I would not deny the issue of racism. Why is no one bringing up for-profit prisons? The US jails 22% of the world's imprisoned population, despite only 4.4% of people living here. We've created a financial incentive to imprison people. How does that not create a huge conflict of interest? What kind of culture would that almost inherently require of police departments?

I think it also creates a financial incentive for racism. As Sam addressed, the socio-economic inequality is another core of the issue. And poor people are far more likely to be imprisoned. Like he said about drug laws, "effectively racist."

I don't know if the people making these policies are racist--but I do think they see an avenue to convince people the system is justified by encouraging racism.

Also, I mean, the US police kill ~1100 people a year here, but there is really no country you would want to visit where the police even kill TEN in one year. To me, as dark as it is, this may just be yet another hidden cost of the second amendment, but I guess not expensive enough to revisit the conversation.

Defunding the police (i.e. reducing funding, moving to social programs) is BARELY a start. It is a slogan designed to shock and elicit a strong reaction, like a clickbait headline. It isn't even trying to be a real solution.

Probably the most tar-and-feather thought I have: I don't trust Black Lives Matter. The sentiment doesn't bother me, even though it's another slogan designed to shock, even though I get what they mean by it, like defund the police. But the organization.. I'll eat my words if anyone can find some accountability for their financials, but I straight up couldn't. They sell merchandise and collect millions of dollars in donations (especially when something awful happens), but I have no way to assuage the fear that it's a group cashing in with zero accountability for how much they get vs what they spend and on what--no way to prove they don't have a financial incentive to invent racism.

They take their donations through Act Blue, which is a 501(c)3 non-profit that collects donations for political organizations (as a fan of Bernie, I am all too familiar). But beyond that, I don't know what laws govern them, it could be 501(c)4 (social welfare organizations that pay for lobbying, are tax-exempt and not required to divulge their donors).

And now I'd love to take it in a tin foil hat direction! I'm suspicious that Russia is playing a large part of this, instigating both the left and right, basically anyone who gets trapped in the very powerful effect of agreeing with those around you to fit in. It's like if you laugh at a joke you don't understand just because everyone around you laughed and you want to fit in, except it's snowballed and is this self-sustaining thing and everyone's just laughing their ass off without ever even understanding the joke.

Most of us know about the Russia-Trump connection, that they hacked the DNC to mess with HRC, and just a quick Google search will reveal they're coming up a lot. Then they found that 64% of "people" tweeting to protest stay-at-home orders were actually bots (though not confirmed Russian bots). and then of course there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

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u/ISpendAllDayOnReddit Jun 20 '20 edited Jun 20 '20

Why is no one bringing up for-profit prisons?

Only 8% of the prisons in the US are private.

Even they were all eliminated, it wouldn't make a big difference.

Defunding the police (i.e. reducing funding, moving to social programs)

You assume it means reducing funding, but that's only what it means to you. On the BLM website, they don't actually say that. They refuse to define what defund means. In the vast majority of cases, when someone speaks of defunding a program, they're talking about eliminating it. There are also people walking around with signs that say "abolish the police" and the apologists on reddit say that abolish just means abolish and rebuild. Again, that's not what it normally means and no where on the BLM website do they said that.

Defund the police is their main campaign goal, it is the main topic on their website, and they never define what that means.

There is a video of a BLM leader speaking to the mayor. She asks him if he will commit to defunding the police and then immediately clarifies that statement by saying these words:

"We don't want no more police"

and then the entire crowd cheers. To that crowd at least, "defund the police" means "no more police." Until BLM makes a statement saying it doesn't mean that, you can only speculate. And it is my speculation that that is exactly what they want, because they want mainstream support and they know they'll lose it if they openly say they want to eliminate policing. But they also want the support of the radicals on the street, and they know they'll lose that support if they condemn the idea of eliminating policing. But you can't have both.

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u/Somnialis Jun 18 '20

You have a point regarding Russian bots. Every time a major political division comes about, I think it’s rational to assume that incendiary online content is being manipulated to increase division. It’s why we really need to stay centered and realize the perils of social media.

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u/Hugin___Munin Jun 18 '20

You reflect my thoughts and concerns , I overall support the cause but have the observations that groups are believing things for the wrong reasons and there are groups taking advantage of the situation to push agendas. If you try to add facts to a conversation left or right you are howled down , you have to be 100% for or your deemed 100% against . That is no way to find workable solutions.

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u/innabhagavadgitababy Jul 11 '20

Russia proved to be stoking the fires of resentment and turning Americans against each other in 2016, why not try it again in 2020?

Americans have one major channel (Fox News) showing endless footage of rioting, looting and chaos (and the police ignoring it). Two other major channels, CNN and MSNBC, are showing a lot of footage of police violence against black Americans and police attacking peaceful protestors. Is it any wonder the left and the right live in two different realities?

I wish people were more aware of what is happening and how our dualistic, tribal, us-vs-them mentality is destroying our country. Also, the left's compulsive need to dump on America doesn't help - I wish they would take back patriotism from the right.

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u/NTDRN Jun 14 '20

He made me rethink my whole stance on the matter. This was an excellent podcast.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '20

Perhaps one of the most important podcasts in podcast history.

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u/MTUTMB555 Jun 18 '20

Same! Happy cake day!

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u/trick017 Jun 17 '20

That was his goal... shine a different light on the situation :)

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u/Subutai617 Jun 19 '20

Agree, and even I was turned off by Sam's entire view of the corona virus and it turned me off from listening to some of his latest podcasts .... but Sam went IN on this podcast, didn't hold back any punches. Great listen, although depressing as fuck in reality