RedDave2 wrote:I always like rogans stuff. He gets involved w8th the interviewee but doesn't try to dominate or try to be the smartest guy in the room. His podcasts with Harris are usually interesting. However, you might want to have a look at the Abby Martin vs Sam Harris video on YouTube. It's bits from both being on rogans show and discussing how many died during the Iraq and how responsible the US was for those deaths. Harris jumps through some insane hoops to try and claim that America shouldn't be held responsible for all those deaths as they were only the military action and they couldn't have known the civil war they would create. Rogan calls him on it numerous times and there is a terrible analogy with the casualties of civilians from drone strikes to road deaths. For a smart guy, Harris comes across as an idiot to be honest and it's clear he apply bias to figures as much as anyone when he wants to. He has a clear ideology that he is on the side of good guys and those against are bad guys who want to destroy the good guys. He ignores the obvious effect of the "good guys" meddling with the "bad guys" country (again Rogan calls him on it)
hunk wrote:Do keep up Jrpc. Summary Discussion: As Klein points out Harris has a blind spot and is incapable of framing the discussion on Murray's work in a larger context of science, philosophy, history and society. Unconsciously, Harris is influenced and disturbed by fake news campaigns and like with sjw's it influences his stance and arguments causing him to side with Murray. Yet Harris is incapable of self reflection and is too stubborn to admit he has a blind spot and is therefore biased. Reasons on why people fall into this behaviour without realising it https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/11/16897062/political-psychology-trump-explain-studies-research-science-motivated-reasoning-bias-fake-news More indication that Murray's premise and data (methods, conclusions and results) are biased in Facewon's link https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray-odious This is also one of the reasons why the scientific community considers Murray's work to be pseudo science. The other reasons being Kuhn and Popper. Obviously.
RedDave2 wrote:Wish I hadn't read that, put me in a depressed mode which will last most of the day I think. Why is humanity so fucking awful to itself I'll never understand.
Pinker argues that economic inequality "is not itself a dimension of human wellbeing" and cites a study that finds inequality is not linked to unhappiness, at least in poorer societies.
He also points out that the world as a whole is becoming more equal, and states that even within increasingly unequal areas, the poor are still getting wealth and benefit from technological innovations.
For example, it is clear to Pinker that an innovation that makes the poor slightly richer and the rich massively richer is a positive rather than a negative achievement.
The book concludes with three chapters defending what Pinker sees as Enlightenment values: reason, science, and humanism.
Pinker argues that these values are under threat from modern trends such as religious fundamentalism, political correctness, and postmodernism.
In an interview about the book published in Scientific American, Pinker has clarified that his book is not merely an expression of hope—it is a documentation of how much we have gained as a result of Enlightenment values, and how much we have to lose if those values are abandoned.
monkey wrote:It's not clear to me. If a village has a field of potatoes and some prick comes along and takes 90% of them leaving everyone else to fight for scraps, that's not a positive outcome. Yes, it's better than no potatoes but come on. Silly example maybe.For example, it is clear to Pinker that an innovation that makes the poor slightly richer and the rich massively richer is a positive rather than a negative achievement.
Brooks wrote:I think I might be going off Pinker, which is a shame as I quite liked Better Angels.
JonB wrote:Pinker can go in a bin with Harris.
The inequality point is definitely one of the more challenging ideas in the book. First off he points out that globally we're doing much better with inequality, but more than that actually challenges the idea that inequality is some sort of great evil in itself which lots of people seem to see it as (including myself i think prior to the book). It isn't.
Brooks wrote:The inequality point is definitely one of the more challenging ideas in the book. First off he points out that globally we're doing much better with inequality, but more than that actually challenges the idea that inequality is some sort of great evil in itself which lots of people seem to see it as (including myself i think prior to the book). It isn't.
He's going to need some truly remarkable data to pull this off.
JRPC wrote:Can you explain why inequality is an evil in itself?
Brooks wrote:You've had enough.
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