r/samharris

I listened to the latest podcast where Sam says if he heard a piece of music that moved him and found out it was AI, it would be no different to finding out a couch that he liked was made by a robot (in other words, he wouldn’t care).

I personally find that strange. Music has always been tied to culture and cultural movements and teaches us and continues to teach us a lot about our humanity. To not care whether music is made by AI but care about the impacts of AI in almost all other areas is a bizarre blind spot.

*too many comments for me to respond to, but thanks for the thought provoking discussion

I have two tickets, row C, seats 221 and 222 to see Sam tonight at 7:30pm at ACL Live in Austin. Bought them for the tour back in February and he had to reschedule, I forgot about it and now I’m out of town. I paid $400 for them, would love to get $200 back out of this but honestly would give them away for free if it meant they don’t go to waste. Too late to sell them on the app so all I can do is transfer. I’d transfer to you first, and if only when you’re sure you got them, or even after the show, would you need to Venmo me. Let me know if you’re interested!

When Sam announced the community I rolled my eyes and thought "great, another layer of paywalling", another step of him isolating into his own bubble. Almost didn't sign up.

Boy was I was wrong. Two days in and I've had more genuinely interesting, good-faith conversations than in the last months of Reddit use. The difference is really hard to overstate.

Last night I got into a debate with a guy about whether we should "respect" religions - to my surprise, my opponent actually tried to steelman my position before pushing back. Not strawmanning and trying to find a gotcha like I'm used to. Just two people actually trying to get at something true. Can't remember the last time that happened on here to a similar degree.

Yes, the belief demographics are fairly uniform (a survey over there confirmed that) meaning mostly non-believers, very science leaning etc.

Also, the caliber of people was genuinely surprising to me. Most members actually fill out their profiles/bios and when you click through, you find many PhDs, founders, execs, therapists so people with actual skin in the game of the ideas being discussed.

The only thing missing is a mobile app. The day they ship one, I might genuinely have found my Reddit replacement for the most part. Until then, I'm checking it on mobile browser like a caveman.

If you've been on the fence, just try it. I went from skeptic to convert in about 48 hours.

Sam Harris likes to criticize religion, and I agree with him, but I do think he misses some aspects. The new populist, Nationalist, working-class MAGA right is not using religion like the Reagan right, but basically creates a new religion.

There is a massive tectonic shift between the traditional Religious Right of the late twentieth century and the populist, Bannon-led "New Right." The old guard focused heavily on doctrinal purity, biblical literalism, and traditional family structures. By contrast, the populist nationalist movement treats Christianity less as a personal faith and more as a tribal uniform, a civilizational shield, and a political weapon

Their Religion is redesigned as a cultural identity marker to unite a fractured working class against what they perceive as a corrupt, globalist elite, centered more around traditions, "Christ is King", and Trump's cult of personality then the classic Christian Nationalism.

The Bannon-type populist wing leans heavily into a stylized, reactionary interpretation of Catholic traditionalism. Fragmented online spaces, podcasts, and video streaming networks allow individuals to bypass institutional gatekeepers and assemble their own customized orthodoxies. Within this digital ecosystem, traditional religious hierarchies are replaced by political influencers and the like, and this new religion is more based on hollow traditions and social media performance.

In this new civil religion, aggressive social media performance, transactional loyalty, and a willingness to smash institutional norms become the new sacred virtues. This new civil religion seeks to also include within itself American nationalism, militant America First, wrapped with Donald Trump's cult of personality, and the religious-traditional envelope.

Joscha Bach on what consciousness actually is in mechanistic terms without retreating to woo, mysticism or hand-waving.

His core claim: the self is a pattern running on the brain, not the substrate itself. What you experience as "the world" is a model your brain generates, not the physical world outside. Phenomenology is a representational regime, not just an information-processing property.

We cover why simulating a connectome won't reproduce behavior (C. elegans, 302 neurons mapped since 1986, no working simulation), what's wrong with Penrose's quantum consciousness theory, why he thinks "you don't die because you were never really alive," and his operational definition of consciousness as self-organized second-order perception that increases global coherence.

90-minute conversation. Linked above.

What's your opinion? Is Joscha right?

Former Making Sense guest Destiny makes a video about Sam's Mamdani comment, Trump's "good people on both sides" controversy, and other subjects.

The relevant part starts around t=9min

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj98BXICrxc

Christianity had once met its match, but Luther revived it with his scripturalism (Nietzsche complained about this). But scripturalism had also met its match as science began to establish its epistemological authority in the world. Christianity was rolling downward to its grave, but then philosophy came alone, specifically Analytical Philosophy, and provided it with a new sophist form that it is still monopolizing to this day.

Analytical Philosophy is the sophist form that is legitimately used by theists*: Plantinga, Swinburne, William Lane Craig and many others, have all found subterfuge in the abstractness of this form. And because humans bias abstract complexity, assuming it to be proof of greater and deeper truth, the form alone has been enough to insinuate the validity and intellectual legitimacy of the claims of Christianity. (People like Alex O’Connor have added to this public image of legitimacy).

Don’t get me wrong, Christianity is still rolling down to its grave, per empirical evidence, but this is partly because its social practice is archaic and diametrically opposed to the short attention span of social media culture.

The more important question is, what happens to these individuals who impulsively reject Christianity when they actually pay attention to its apologetics? (Many get indoctrinated into it). Most people do not reject Christianity at this level, they don’t even know that this level exists. They just don’t like sitting in Church listening to people make archaic declarations from a book they can’t relate to. Because Christianity has clashed with modern egoism, therefore it is highly unappealing to the modern egoistic man.

There’s a reason why philosophy empowered the discourse of theism, while Critical Thinking and Scientific Skepticism did not, and do not, and this is because philosophy is itself a theological form.

*Theists were even conscious of this form. In 1998 the book, “The Analytic Theist” appeared, Eerdmans Publishing Company

Relevance: Sam has complained in a similar vein about Weinstein's incredibly irresponsible nonsense, but has never confronted him directly. Tracey is really the best journalist out there debunking Epstein hysteria, and here he absolutely demolishes Weinstein.

I'd be interested to see Sam and Adam's views find a common ground as they're both on the opposite ends of the spectrum on this topic

Harris has a video up saying, in essence, Gaza isnt a genocide because Hiroshimi wasnt a genocide.

He is not engaging with the actual serious argument about this at all, which goes to intent.

In 1945, US leadership consistently framed the bombings in military-necessity terms. In Gaza, Israeli officials produced a documented record of statements that prosecutors argue reveal intent toward the group itself:

• Defence Minister Gallant's "human animals" remark
• President Herzog's statement that "an entire nation out there is responsible"
• References to Amalek (a biblical command of total destruction)
• Energy Minister Katz calling for Gaza to be made into a "island" with no entry of goods

Under genocide law, intent can be inferred from statements so thats what the debate should be about.

Pretending there isn't a debatable case to answer here ("no serious person thinks...") is incredibly disingenuous, however you think the test should be applied.

Edit: removed tangential reference to ICJ as it was incorrect as clarified in a comment below

Sam Harris has launched “Communities” as the “answer to the reddit” with real people and real names, effectively rendering this subreddit irrelevant. We can **still** debate here but I doubt any of the team from Sam Harris will look here, when they have a new platform to look at. Views?