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Sam Harris tweets support for article claiming black people are poor because of their culture

sphagnum

sphagnum

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Oct 25, 2017
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I'm not even going to quote anything from the essay itself, which is a piece by a philosophy major undergrad, because why bother? It basically boils down to "racism can't be the cause of black American poverty because other minorities do well and also black people spend money stupidly". Rather, I think this is more pertinent as further evidence of Sam's racism which some people swore up and down wasnt the case after the Charles Murray incident.
 
lmcfigs

lmcfigs

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Oct 25, 2017
12,091
Harris supporters: "you took him out of context. what he meant was the opposite."
 

Deleted member 8257

Oct 26, 2017
24,586
Sam Harris is not really as smart he thinks he is. Engages in sophistry and imbecilic arguments. Such as this one. His fanbase reminds me of r/the_donald, who wet themselves into a frenzy at every tweet their orange shit beast utters from his pink anus lips.

edit:

But slavery is hardly the root cause of America's prosperity. If it were, then we would expect American states that practiced slavery to be richer than those that did not.
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LOL I just had to quote this. Amazing.
 
Tristam

Tristam

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Oct 25, 2017
118
Kid's a philosophy major. Has he not learned about fallacies yet? Third paragraph in and I can't continue.

But slavery is hardly the root cause of America's prosperity. If it were, then we would expect American states that practiced slavery to be richer than those that did not. Yet we see precisely the opposite. The South, where slavery thrived, was "the poorest and most backward region of the country," according to the economist Thomas Sowell.1 This remains true today. A recent analysis of census data found that Northeastern states, which forbade slavery, "are among the wealthiest," whereas "states in the Southeast are among the poorest."
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JustinP

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Oct 25, 2017
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Tristam said:
Kid's a philosophy major. Has he not learned about fallacies yet? Third paragraph in and I can't continue.
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And:
In her view, the "essential first step to dealing with the wealth gap is to acknowledge that it was created through racist public policy."22 But what do such "acknowledgements" achieve, other than to imbue those doing the acknowledging with a sense of virtue? Acknowledging historical racism is no more of an "essential first step" to closing the wealth gap than acknowledging the driver's culpability is an essential first step to healing the injured pedestrian.
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Last I checked, you couldn't heal someone with a car -- but public policy can absolutely influence behavior.
 
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BossAttack

BossAttack

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Oct 27, 2017
43,331
Yeah, but you see you're taking him out of context. He doesn't really support the piece, he's just providing a link to an alternate academic view of looking at things for everyone to analyze on their own. Statistics aren't racist. It's just science. Stop trying to politicize science. You really need to listen to the full three-hour podcast consisting of ten full parts which reference back to his other one-hundred episodes where he elucidated further on these matters.
 

Deleted member 23212

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Oct 28, 2017
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Sam Harris has right-wing beliefs, what seems contradictory though is him trying to describe the US on one hand as a state that relies way too much on religion and which is a detriment to it and causes huge problems to then defending the US state and how it is actually not as bad as many people try to make it out to be.
 
Xiaomi

Xiaomi

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Oct 25, 2017
7,237
Kid needs to finish his education. It's not even an entertaining contrarian piece like something you might find by Adolph Reed. He instead seems to be making the jump from "there are certain problems in black American society that should be solved" to "black Americans are culturally predisposed to poverty." Which uh... their culture is American culture. Black culture is not as far removed from American culture in general as the writer seems to imply. Surely as a black guy he gets that.
 
signal

signal

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Oct 28, 2017
40,363
HomokHarcos said:
Sam Harris has said before that he's proud of his fans for questioning him sometimes. I wonder if he'll come up with a response to this.
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It's a bit funny that reddit of all places probably has his most critical fans. The zealot fanbase is true for most of these figures in most places but his subreddit is more often than not pretty critical.
 
Not

Not

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Oct 25, 2017
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US
This guy seems like a "for some reason I like data that suggests it's not white people's fault" kind of white person
 
excelsiorlef

excelsiorlef

Bad Praxis
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Oct 25, 2017
73,560
I love (read hate) that there is an entire cottage industry for people, who are too embarrassed to admit they're just plain old conservatives, to peddle conservatism under the guide of moderation or even in some cases "part of the left'

These folks know that conservatism is a tainted brand so they tap dance around the label and people buy it.

Just another way the overton window shifts to the right.
 
excelsiorlef

excelsiorlef

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Oct 25, 2017
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Reminder Sam Harris literally believes BLM succeeding would set back race relations by a generation
 

JustinP

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Oct 25, 2017
6,343
zashga said:
How close is Sam Harris to being a full-blown race realist?
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jG1Bf6X.jpg


Precisely this close
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
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Oct 25, 2017
94,145
Sam "Civil Right movements set black people back" Harris?
 

Deleted member 8257

Oct 26, 2017
24,586
HomokHarcos said:
Sam Harris has said before that he's proud of his fans for questioning him sometimes. I wonder if he'll come up with a response to this.
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That only works if you adjust your viewpoint after some reflection. Has Sam Harris ever admitted he was wrong with regards to his views?
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
94,145
But slavery is hardly the root cause of America's prosperity. If it were, then we would expect American states that practiced slavery to be richer than those that did not. Yet we see precisely the opposite. The South, where slavery thrived, was "the poorest and most backward region of the country," according to the economist Thomas Sowell.1 This remains true today. A recent analysis of census data found that Northeastern states, which forbade slavery, "are among the wealthiest," whereas "states in the Southeast are among the poorest."
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This dude is in college? This is like 6th grader level understanding of history
 

HomokHarcos

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Jul 11, 2018
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RustyNails said:
That only works if you adjust your viewpoint after some reflection. Has Sam Harris ever admitted he was wrong with regards to his views?
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No. I remember he got into a debate with somebody and at first refused to release it. His fans were accusing him of hiding something, and he then proceeded to say he was happy that his fans questioned him not uploading the debate. He then (by his own admission) edited parts out anyway.
 

Deleted member 7130

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
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He's basically openly using Fox News tactics. Find a black person (or other minority) to say all the things you cannot say without being called a racist because you're white. Then you can get away epousing racist shit vicariously and with a veil of deniability. "I can't possibly be racist. See? A black person said it."
 
Enzom21

Enzom21

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Oct 25, 2017
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So do any of you brave souls who agree want to speak up? We all know you're here, be brave for once and say what you feel.
 

Something Creative

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,227
Michael Shermer supports it, too



This 'intellectual' block of Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Michael Shermer, et al. .... fucking blah

I really should stop following him on Twitter but he gives me some insight into people who are really trying to carve a space out for themselves and possibly succeeding
 
TheHunter

TheHunter

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Oct 25, 2017
25,774
Kid thinks because he passed Philosophy he can argue socio-economics now.
 
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