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Gurometer: Sam Harris (Patreon)

Published:
2023-12-26 07:27:08
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Final DTG content for the year.

Sam Harris gets put into the Gurometer.

Audio version to follow later today.

Files

Gurometer: Sam Harris

Comments

Saksaas

This seems pretty fair. A bit higher than I thought on some points, like conflating self aggrandizement with galaxy brain when he is confidently tanking on many topics. Funny that he’s so close to Gwyneth Paltrow, as I imagine they would get along like manga protagonists and trucks.

Ymirsdreams

Apparently monkeys give in to peer pressure. (Apropos nothing.)

hasty rewrite

I agreed with most (but not all) of your criticisms of Sam in the decoding episode - Chris' observation about Sam's propensity to under-research controversial figures is particularly spot-on - and yet I disagreed with most (but not all) of your opinions on him in this Gurumeter episode. Your rankings were way too high across multiple categories. That said, it was an interesting conversation and some of your points were fair. My opinions on religion, culture and politics align more with Sam than with you guys, but I also think you guys do an excellent job analysing his blind spots and failings. I enjoyed the criticism of his Buddhist spiritual stuff in the latest episode, since I consider that the worst part of his output, and yet it's among the areas he seems to get least heat for. I remember in a conversation with Stephen Fry about mindfulness on the Making Sense podcast, Fry brought up how unfalsifiable all these claims are about enhanced states of consciousness and the supposed heightened insights you get from meditative practices. I'm basically on Fry's side on that one, and yet it rarely seems to get brought up with Sam even though I can actually see some parallels between the unfalsifiable claims made about the "unique" benefits and insights of secular meditation and the unfalsifiable religious claims Sam rightly calls out.

Protagonist Science

Really enjoyed your decoding of Sam and your analysis on his lableak failures

Saladus

I think Sam could've ranked a little higher in pseudoprofound bullshit. There were several times in the clips from the decoding where he smoothly inserted some technical term (pareto optimal, etc) into an unrelated conversation and didn't elaborate further, seemingly just to sound smart to Chris W or his audience. He never drew attention to it happening, though, and to some extent I think it comes from him being a genuinely well-studied guy.

Kat

I guess I think he should be higher on pseudo-profound bullshit. Whether or not he uses the terms correctly, he tosses terms around like "bandwidth" and "game theory" in a way that makes him seem more intelligent.

scottymfg

While Sam is otherwise very low on pseudo-profound BS, I do think that his whole no-self spiel at least moves the needle. I am pretty spiritual-curious on these points but I can't help think that it is not as profound as Sam insists.

SHOUNAK SARKAR

Hey guys, pretty fair rating. I personally would have rated Harris higher on the pseudo-profound bullshit and conspiracy mongering (he's been proven to be gullible to many anti-woke and right wing conspiracy theories, for example even on the Christchurch shooter manifesto.) But overall, you guys described your marks very well! The one thing that I would sharply disagree with Matt on is the harmless nature of Harris. Matt, I think that you are comparing Harris favorably to more unhinged and conspiratorial secular guru cranks (which is fair); but overall, given his positions on racial & religious profiling, race-IQ science, a reactionary and reflexively anti-woke worldview and the absolute certainty with which he speaks, he is pretty toxic and bigoted IMO. I especially find his continued fawning over and praise of a hard-right ideologue like Douglas Murray quite disgusting. Plus, on the latest episode, Harris did a fairly chummy discussion with Jordan Peterson where Harris did not raise a single objection with regards to Peterson's climate change denialism, pushing of unhinged conspiracy theories & uber partisan Tweets. But the conversation was promoted as if its a hard conversation between people who disagree on everything. LOL what a joke!

A History of Rock n' Roll in Film and Rock n' Roll BONUS MATERIAL

I was a big fan of Sam's podcast back when it first started. I left after he shifted into constant culture-war dustups on Twitter + discussing them on every episode. Also after trying to take him up on his "email us for a free membership if you can't afford one" multiple times over the years to much more frustration and inactivity than success.