Comments by "" (@TheHuxleyAgnostic) on "Sam Harris" channel.

  1. 27% of Republicans don't want Dumpty to concede, even if his sham court challenges fail. They're ready to give up on democratic elections, and check the box for fascism. Don't make the mistake of thinking "fascist" means they have to be a Hitler, Franco, or Mussolini. There have been numerous fascist tin pot dictators in South and Central America, and other places around the world. Not all of them have been especially competent or particularly intelligent. A number of them only gained, or maintained, power with US assistance. Not all of them were tossing people in ovens. Simply saying "fascist" isn't an automatic jump to some evil genocidal mastermind. Clown, or not, you've got someone who seems willing to take on the role of dictator, who has dozens of politicians, and millions of Americans, willing to support him in that role.
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  2. ​ @pocket83squared  You opened with much strawmanning. I do believe in pure objectivity, and do believe there can be a reasonable basis for values ("reasonable" doesn't equate to objective). I'm pretty sure empiricism can handle providing objective evidence of a floor. What's the empirical, objective, evidence that I ought to value X? There is none. Valuing X entirely relies on caring (subjectivity) about X. "X is suffering" ... So what? Irrelevant, unless you care (subjectivity) about X suffering. So, everyone who eats meat, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Everyone who justifies b.mbing civilians, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Everyone who justifies t.rture, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Then you go on about religion. Even a god's morality would be based on subjectivity, it's own subjective likes and dislikes. Absolutely nobody has ever made a valid case for objective morality.
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  3. No. That could not be considered a scientific truth. If you're simply studying morality, the scientific truth is that people have a variety of different concepts of morality, and there is no objective, scientific, evidence that one is objectively correct. Sam subjectively picks one, measures others with the one he picked, and then rules the others wrong. That's somewhat like picking imperial and then saying metric is the objectively wrong way to measure things.
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  4.  @Pradeep_889  Sure, it's an objective fact that tons of species are wired to subjectively value self preservation. Does that translate into it being an objective fact that none of those species should be harmed, including humans? Including cows? Including dogs? Including chickens? Including cats? Etc. Don't we simply like ourselves, dogs, and cats more, so give them more value.
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  5.  @Pradeep_889  Weird, how that doesn't answer my question. Should we not harm all species that have a self preservation instinct? Yes, a newborn has to rely on the subjective caring of a parent. If no parent cares, they might get tossed in a dumpster. Objectivity has no bias, either way, by definition. It doesn't care if you're snuggled in a crib, or in a dumpster. Some species lay eggs, or spit out their offspring, and then walk away. And yet, they still have a self preservation instinct. It just literally only covers themselves. Much like a narcissist.
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  6. Sam didn't invent sociology. We already have a study of societies. We already measure the human condition, in all kinds of ways. There are indexes for happiness, freedom, democracy, poverty, education, life expectancy, crime, safety, etc., etc., etc. There are already existing peaks and valleys, based on those scientific measures. He also didn't invent what he agreed was already a widely understood given ... That, if you set a subjective value, there are then objectively better and worse was to get what you value, and science can help. If I value building a nuclear power plant, or a nuclear bomb, there are then objectively better and worse ways to achieve either of those goals, and science can help achieve them. Likewise, if I subjectively value human well being, or human suffering, there are then objectively better and worse ways to achieve either of those goals, and science can help. In all of those cases, objectivity and science don't care what you do, any which way. The question is all about whether science/objectivity can tell us what to value, and the answer is no. He has never actually got beyond what he stated was a given, at the start. Science doesn't care if you want to blow up the world. It will help you do it.
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  7. ​ @conordelaney76  Evolution doesn't demand we survive any more than it demanded endless amounts of now extinct species survive. The universe doesn't care if we live or die. And objectivity, by definition, doesn't care if humans suffer or don't. It will simply state the fact that you are, or you aren't, suffering. Sam himself makes arguments in favor of causing people to suffer, so he doesn't actually believe it's an objective fact that causing suffering is doing something wrong.
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  8. ​ @pocket83squared  This was Sam's starting given, accepted as widely agreed upon, when he first talked about his Moral Landscape ... "Now, it's generally understood that questions of morality -- questions of good and evil and right and wrong -- are questions about which science officially has no opinion. It's thought that science can help us get what we value, but it can never tell us what we ought to value." Right. So, if I subjectively value going to the moon, there are then objectively better and worse ways for me to achieve that goal, and science can help. Likewise, if someone were to subjectively value earthly well being, there would then be objectively better and worse ways to achieve that goal, and science could help. That was Sam's agreed upon starting point. Did he ever get beyond that point? No. Can science itself tell us we ought to value going to the moon, or value Sam's definition of "well being"? No. Sam got no further than the starting point, and therefore gave us nothing. Most of the time he's just talking sociology. Sociology already exists, with all kinds of measures of the human condition.
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  9. ​ @pocket83squared Rofl! You opened with much strawmanning. I do believe in pure objectivity, and do believe there can be a reasonable basis for values ("reasonable" isn't the same as objective). I'm pretty sure empiricism can handle providing objective evidence of a floor. What's the empirical, objective, evidence that I ought to value X? There is none. Valuing X entirely relies on caring (subjectivity) about X. So, everyone who eats meat, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Everyone who justifies war, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Everyone who justifies torture, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Then you go ranting about religious gobbledygook. Even a god's morality would be based on subjectivity, it's own subjective likes and dislikes. Absolutely nobody, including them, has a case for objective morality.
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  10. ​ @pocket83squared ​ Oh man, you opened with much strawmanning. I do believe in pure objectivity, and do believe there can be a reasonable basis for values ("reasonable" isn't the same as objective). I'm pretty sure empiricism can handle providing objective evidence of a floor. What's the empirical, objective, evidence that I ought to value X? There is none. Valuing X entirely relies on caring (subjectivity) about X. So, everyone who eats meat, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Everyone who justifies war, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Everyone who justifies torture, including Sam, is objectively immoral? Then you go on about religious gobbledygook. Even a god's morality would be based on subjectivity, it's own subjective likes and dislikes. Absolutely nobody has ever made a valid case for objective morality.
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  11.  @markmatson3468  What a dimwitted reply.
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  12. No, he doesn't. "Therefore there must be right and wrong answers, to questions of ..." artistic, musical, literary, theatrical, culinary, etc., etc., etc., ... likes and dislikes. Just because subjectivity objectively exists, doesn't mean there are objectively right and wrong answers. His conclusion is idiotic. The only difference is we subjectively care more about moral issues.
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  13. ​ @HelloJamesBond  You are the one doing the reversal of who is the aggressor. Everyone going on about Oct 7, is like freaking out that Native American "Savages!" had attacked some colonizers. Sure, not productive and morally questionable, but the natives weren't the aggressors. Or like claiming the resistance groups behind the Warsaw ghetto uprising were the aggressors, against the Nazis. Zionism is colonialism, as the early 20th century Zionists weren't shy to admit. They simply argued their colonialism was "good". One of those being Ze'ev Jabotinsky who, in his 1923 The Iron Wall, fully acknowledged that Zionism is colonialism and that, based on the entirety of history, the Palestinian natives would fight it until the bitter end. Followers of Ze'ev formed the Irgun and Lehi terrorist groups. The Irgun bombed numerous Palestinian markets and other public places, murdering Palestinian men, women, and children, even Palestinian Jews, who didn't support colonialist Zionsim. The Lehi were considered even more extreme, tried to ally with the Nazis against Britain, continued fighting the British during WWII, assassinated British diplomats, etc. Israel merged those terrorists into their military and intelligence agencies. The leaders of those terrorist groups founded Likud. Both those terrorist leaders were elected as PMs, by Israelis. Israelis, to this day, celebrate those terrorist groups as "heroes". Likud's platform, "between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty", promises to completely colonize and ethnically cleanse all Palestine territories. It further claims a "right" to all the "Lands of Israel" (fictional biblical borders that don't mesh with archaeological reality), which is an open declaration of future wars, against Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Palestinians have Canaanite DNA. They're Arab and Muslim the same way indigenous peoples of Central America are now Hispanic and Catholic. They are indigenous, and have basically just been reacting like any people being colonized, for the last 100 years. It is Zionism that is based on absolute batshit crazy religious nuttery. Plus, the fact that partition was forced on the actual majority (1.3m non-Jews vs 630k Jews), against their will ... That non-Jews were still a majority in the Zionist portion of partition (856k non-Jews vs 715k Jews), until 700k were ethnically cleansed and never allowed to return ... And that, all Palestine territories are officially considered occupied, and the millions of Palestinians have no vote for the actual authority over them, Israel ... Means Israel is about as democratic as Nazi Germany after Hitler purged his political opponents and then held elections. They're operating an open air WWII style fascist ghetto, ffs. They're, objectively, the aggressors, the bad guys.
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  14. Is the obvious point, that Harris is just as dumb as he was years ago?
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  15. ​ @OolTube02  Lol, Zionsim turned fascist about 100 years ago.
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  16. ​ @boondog8504  Ironically, in the US, most of the asylum seekers have Native American ancestry, and the racists with European ancestry are crying about being "replaced".
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  17.  @Pradeep_889  1 2 3
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  18. He's a complete and utter maroon.
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  19. Why? Harris is an idiot. "Therefore there must be right and wrong answers, to questions of ..." artistic, musical, literary, theatrical, culinary, etc., etc., etc., ... likes and dislikes. What a maroon. Just because subjectivity objectively exists, doesn't mean there are objectively right and wrong answers.
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  20. "when manipulated" is the key part, because no AI sets its own primary subjective goals, and likely never will. The danger will always lie with the programmers, and their goals. No AI will do what absolutely nobody wants, like Sam suggested, because AI doesn't actually care, itself, about the outcomes. Someone has to program their desired outcome into the AI.
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