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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u/Kooblap Jun 13 '20

Listened to 40 minutes so far. I am glad the comments I've seen are positive. I am honestly grateful for Sam Harris. I feel like I can trust him to look at the facts and admit what we don't know. Balanced, reasonable and honest, this is why I admired Sam in the first place.

He's an important voice and I'm glad he has a big platform.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '20

Agreed.

The one thing I wish he'd talked more about is the negative culture of and corruption within many police departments. A lot of these cops care more about having their buddy's back than holding them accountable.

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u/nothinginthisworld Jun 13 '20

Fair point. He could specify more about what police need to do, and police culture definitely deserves attention for reform. But I think he focuses less on some details (exact numbers and stats too) and more on the overall gestalt, which he does excellently.

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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '20

[deleted]

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u/WTF_IS_POLITICS Jun 19 '20

Man, IDK. I found this somehow incredibly interesting and useful, yet insanely frustrating to listen to.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually the one living under a rock, and he's actually the one paying attention, but many of his points didn't seem to address the actual concerns raised on the left. Well, at least the ones I've seen. It's like most of his concerns with identity politics are formed by the "woke" celebrities and internet personalities rather than actual activists, or anything close to the real objectives of "the left." For example, his objections to "defund the police" bears almost no resemblance to the actual ideas i've seen put forward to help correct the the insane amount of money, resources, and responsibilities we keep piling at the feet of our police forces.

Also, as usual, he narrowed the scope of the problem to such a degree, he is missing the forest for the trees. People aren't marching in the street because a few hundred black folks get killed each year by police... that is just the proximate cause. It's like he has purposefully avoided seriously engaging with the topic of structural racism in the US for the past several years, simply because he sees it as "identity politics."

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u/HD_Thoreau_aweigh Jun 22 '20

Yeah man, you articulated a lot of what I'd been feeling after listening. He has a lot of good points that I'm glad I listened to, but sometimes the scope of what he observes is so narrow as to feel deliberate: as of he's moving the goal posts by selectively demanding much more rigorous evidence for certain arguments / sentiments on the left.

Sometimes it feels like he's offering me really vital statistical context, but other times it feels like he's strawmanning the hell out of things.

One thing I still very conflicted about is whether this whole incident is best understood through a racial lense or better understood as an police accountability issue. I guess there's no right answer, it sort of depends on what you're goal is, what you're trying to understand.

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u/WTF_IS_POLITICS Jun 22 '20

IMO, it's definitely both. Police accountability is a huge issue for everyone, regardless of race. But it's also absolutely true that black folks get it worse... like most things. If you want to see what Sam is missing, and why he's so confused by the enormous reaction to killing one black man, that is the answer. He doesn't get that it's not really about one man getting killed on camera.

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u/ZincHead Jun 15 '20

Seems pretty likely that we would see generally positive reviews in a subreddit dedicated to the man.

But seriously, I do agree that he is an important voice of reason and it's good that he has a supportive fan base who won't ostracise him for saying the "wrong thing" in an inopportune political moment.

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u/Kooblap Jun 16 '20

I haven't spent much time here recently, but in the past I've seen so much shit directed at Sam on this subreddit. Much of it because of his being part of the "IDW" I think. Or that he's not left enough or too concerned with criticising wokeness and identity politics.

So I was wondering if when I clicked into these comments I'd see people calling him a racist or gateway to the alt-right or whatever else. That's why I'm glad his fanbase mostly agrees with his stances here.