People that hate Sam Harris

4x4lo8o · 2時間前

I'm a "hater" I guess. I'm someone who's sort of in line with him in a lot of ways - atheist, somewhat left leaning but very non-partisan and anti-tribalism, and pretty scientific minded and driven by logic. Some of my friends are pretty into him, so I've listened/read to a lot of stuff. I just find the guy really off putting. He's disingenuous and dismissive of ideas/people that he doesn't agree, especially if those people aren't in the room with him. He also often acts like he has a monopoly on reason and often makes broad statements about how people with opposing viewpoints have "abandoned reason". This is particularly problematic when it comes to political issues that are complex and have to take into ideology and social factors and political strategy and can't just resolved by just sitting down and "thinking logically" about the issue. I'd like him a lot more if he didn't constantly act like he has the high ground of reason and logic

Sentrus · 8時間前

I'm not trying to be insulting here but, the tone of your post comes across a little sycophantic to be honest. If that's not what you intended, I apologize, but you do seem to be putting Sam on some kind of bizarre pedestal.

Sam seems like a good person, and a rational person. But beyond that, he's just a person. Yes, he's pissed off his fair share of people on social media because he talks about controversial subjects that people struggle to be rational about. However, the last thing we need is a cult of personality or an identity forming around him.

Don't feel personally attacked, just try and understand that some people aren't ready to be rational about particular topics. Someone being an ass to Sam on twitter is meaningless and he doesn't need his listeners to circle the wagons.

AyJaySimon · 10時間前

Nobody is as popular as their biggest fans think they are.

Martin_Martin_Martin · 3時間前

I rarely see people who "hate" Sam Harris insult his intelligence, his vocabulary or his ability to articulate himself. But if you can't see how someone could possibly be a staunch opponent to Harris and many of his viewpoints, you might want to do some reading outside of his/ your bubble.
I think it's perfectly reasonable for the far left to be put off by him. Not just the far left - he himself has (idiodically) called the ENTIRE left "irredeemable at this point" because of the strawman positions he has helped foster, in a way.
When it comes to foreign policy, he seems rather hawkish and a firm believer in the "America, the gentle giant" myth. That doesn't make him a very interesting person to talk to for the adversarial, regime critical journalists from DemocracyNow to The Intercept, not to mention people like Noam Chomsky (I happen to think that Chomsky won their email-debate by all accounts). He's probably their enemy more so than actual conservatives are. Sure, he's a staunch anti-Trumper, but from a very elitist, corporate left kind of position. He's mostly just shitting on Trump with people like David Frum, architects of policies seen as just as despicable.

You say Harris cares about "getting to the truth" of issues, but that's not always the case either. See the gender studies-hoax as a very recent example, his acceptance of Jordan Peterson's C16-claims or the many times he retweets articles that play into his general biases and ideological motivations.

And on top if it, your attitude - that Sam Harris is some shining beacon of reason and truth in a vast sea of adversity - is something I and many others find very offputting about many of the "skeptics" that I used to enjoy a great deal. Sure, Sam Harris gets misrepresented a lot, but he seems to prefer picking easy battles over responding honestly to actual, valid criticism. (Why would he rather invite Ezra Klein to scold him about being mean to him than invite some qualified critics of his treatment of Murray?)

-GutZ- · 7時間前

Besides "No good reason", I think a few people may not like how he approaches or discusses topics. He's pretty direct, doesn't sugar coat...it's sort of a raw style, which I personally like, but I can see others being off put by it. I think for him when choosing to select making a conversation or message more comfortable for the recipient vs getting a factual statement out he 9/10 goes for the latter.

You can debate which way is better, but I do have to admit there are time when a better discussion could have taken place had he choose to engage with the former style.

nacnudn · 2時間前

If you reread your post, you might find it is very much centered around yourself, which is also why you take criticism of Sam so personally. "Sam Harris agrees with ME and MY IDEAS, so how can people disagree with him??"

Why do you hold your own ideas in such high esteem? That is an extremely dangerous way to think.

34erqw34 · 2時間前

I totally want to wear Sam's face too. I mean errr uh I like Sam too.

kidamnesiac94 · 10時間前

It honestly upsets me on a personal level when I see people who hate Sam Harris. It just fucking baffles me.

I wouldn't go that far, but I do wonder about the personal agenda of people who call Harris an idiot or otherwise insult his intelligence. I mean, come on people.

savior41 · 9時間前

In another comment you wrote:

agree with him on probably like 99% of issues

It's not a good sign to agree with someone that much, especially if you're already calling them a role model.

It's certainly possible that your views just so happen to align with him that closely, but from an outsider's perspective it doesn't seem probable.

And can you really not imagine people disagreeing with or disliking Sam? He's made an entire career out of attacking the most closely held beliefs people can have, religious beliefs.

thecbusiness · 9時間前

Reasons why people call certain Harris fans a cult: exhibit A

darklordabc · 4時間前

I know how you feel. To me, he is basically flawless, so the venom against him perplexes me too, but I guess it speaks to the fact that his type of highly rational thinking is not welcomed by a lot of people.

Bichpwner · 4時間前

I wouldn't worry too much about anyone who goes about claiming they hate a public figure online, they would almost always attempt to be much more reasonable in person.

Sam does have a lot of critics in the scientific community (at least in Psychology) as a consequence of the quality of his research.

He also has a very poor reputation amoung academic and hobbyist philosophers, most don't deem his book The Moral Landscape worthy of the attention garnered by their criticism, those that do are harsh.

This is all to say, when he advertises himself as a credible scientist and a philosopher, as opposed to a political commentator, I can appreciate the possibility that some would be brought to ire in weaker moments.

BrosettaStone7 · 3時間前

I love Sam but a part of him really irks me. I can't put my finger on it unfortunately

Mononym_Music · 2時間前

this is the same reason people blindly follow politics, religion, etc. you made a pretty good point and probably don't realize it.

SuccessfulOperation · 2時間前

He exposes himself when its revealed he doesn't know as much as he claims to.

For instance, his lack of research into the racist eugenist Charles Murray's background: https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/6gidnl/why_arent_we_discussing_charles_murrays_backing/

DeanPritchard25 · 1時間前

I agree 100%.

whoissisyphus · 44分前

Don't you know people who view religion as part of their core identity? Of course he feels like an enemy to them. Much of his work is about socially engineering religion out of our society.

Devereaux4213 · 2時間前

It could possibly help if I share my personal perspective, being that I really did admire Sam just as much as you seem to, but in the past 6 months or so have came to see him in a different, and yes worse, light. I've listened to every single one of his podcasts, maybe 85% of all of his videos on YouTube, (only) 3 of his books, I really did admire him, I'm not just building false credibility.

I think something that everyone here will all agree on, that I've came to change my mind about, is that religion, specifically Islam at this moment, is the biggest issue, or THE fight. I think religion is heavily weighed as the front line fight of today's world, but I just don't see it this way anymore, and I think many of Sam's 'opponents' won't think so either. I moved out of my 'anti-theist' stage about the time I started to disagree with Sam more, which I could see as a basic premise that everything stems from, obviously reaching wildly different conclusions that both sides see as ridiculous.

Also take a so-called rivalry between him and Chomsky. I think the main differences is how they see the United States, and what the underlining objectives of the country is. This is my main point of contention with Sam, and the starting point for I think the main issues of how he sees the world. Sam really is an establishment 'liberal' in every sense of the word. He thinks the USA has good intentions, and that we are just at war with bad players. Chomsky is an Anarchist, and wishes to dismantle ILLEGITIMATE power structures (oppression of all kind). Agree or disagree, Chomsky's view is that corporate/business interests dominate our foreign policy, and is unjust, having wars for these reasons. And no, Chomsky doesn't just go off of 'body counts' like Sam seems to portray. I was very disappointed in Sam when I discovered how ignorant he was on Chomsky's work. When faced with 50 years of essays and books and lectures of Chomsky's, and Sam comes in and says, yeah no, the USA has 'good intentions' and that we are at war with an ideology, people don't buy it. At least not those that are on an anti-imperialist side of this. So yes they see Sam as a sort of apologist for the State and it's military, ignoring the mountain of evidence against this that others have pointed out for decades.

I've rambled enough, sorry for that. I'd just like to end with saying, of course there are bad actors on both sides, and people that may misrepresent Sam, but that's not where the disagreement is. It's not that Sam is just so right and inflatable and if only everyone would stop lying about him we would all agree with him!! It starts with most of his basic premises, that some of us just don't buy anymore.

jhurdm · 4時間前

Well, Sam himself has changed his views on certain things, so he certainly has been wrong at times. Some people don't follow him on a daily basis, so if they come across him on an issue where was wrong, and later changed his view, perhaps they don't pay attention to the later view change - why should they, if he's not on their general radar anyway.

Cornstar23 · 4時間前

To understand why people think he is racist, this example may help (at least if you lean to the left politically). Have you ever got into an argument with someone who is defending voter id laws? You know that in-person voter fraud is a complete non-issue and has no chance of ever becoming pervasive and affecting elections. So whatever arguments someone makes, as rational as they may be, you know that the genesis of their desire to implement voter id laws is at least based on identity politics and at worst bigotry.

This is how people who think Harris is a racist are thinking. They 'know' that the genesis of his argument against Islam is really just a guise to hide his objective of demonizing brown-skinned Muslims. So it does not really matter how rational he is, or if he makes a valid point every so often, they 'know' his true intentions and view everything from that lens. I don't agree with their assessment, but I completely understand that viewpoint.

KlaudioKil · 2時間前

I agree with most of what you said. I can understand disagreeing with Sam on certain issues, but he's obviously a genuine and honest guy. I really don't understand the aggressive hate he sometimes gets. Obviously he hits a lot of nerves with his stuff, but when you actually listen to his explanations and arguments I think it's clear he isn't being malicious.

eristic1 · 2時間前

I hadn't seen much Sam Harris hate until he started spouting CNN (Fakenews) headlines about Donald Trump.

mugicha · 2時間前

It's actually been kind of a learning experience for me to see how many people hate Sam and misrepresent what he says. It just shows that no matter what you say or do, there will be people out there that just don't like you or decide to willfully ignore reality and try to paint you as the asshole in a situation when actually it's them who's being an asshole. The examples I'm thinking of here for Sam are like Glen Greenwald, Reza Aslan, etc. I know this probably sounds trite or obvious, but I think we all experience this in our own personal lives. I know I do anyway, and seeing Sam go through it on the grand scale of Twitter beefs and negative articles written about him etc makes me realize that he's only human, and that we all have to put up with and accept that some people are just going to not like us. So no, it's not surprising or weird at all that he has his detractors, it's the normal state of human relations. Considering the topics he covers it would be extremely weird if he didn't have a bunch of people that hated him.

risingroses · 59分前

I've nothing to say for those who hate Harris, as that is a very strong thing to feel towards the man.

However, as to disagreeing with him - that is very easy to do.

If it's true that:

Every point he makes he always has such a compelling rational defense for that I find it nearly impossible to disagree with him on nearly anything.

then I would say any of three things are likely true:

you are not implementing very critical thinking about what he says,
you already held most of the perspectives and stances Harris professes, yourself beforehand, or
You aren't aware of legitimate opposing viewpoints.

The third I've found to be very, very common among Harris followers. They listen to Harris, and he makes good points, so they accept them as true. But if you are unaware of the range of perspectives out there, then how could you possibly disagree with him? A man gives valid points to support one perspective, and you are unaware of any other perspectives. When people listen to Harris and agree, but they are not aware of any other sides of the issue, this does not indicate Harris has the sole copyright on "truth", only that the listener/reader is unaware of other viewpoints out there.

I've seen many legitimate disagreements with Harris, including but not limited to the airport security expert Harris spoke with, Dennett, who expresses a different view on free will than Harris, and any philosophers who do not subscribe to a utilitarian philosophy (like Kant), as well as anyone who is a pure consequentialist.

Yes Harris makes a compelling argument - if you accept his premises as true - but not everyone does. If you are unaware of opposing viewpoints, then of course you agree with Harris, because it's all you know.

And of course many people simply subscribe to what Harris argues, because they agree with that perspective.

And then there are those who just don't analyze very deeply.

I don't know which of these categories you might fit into, but it is not difficult to disagree with Harris. His conclusions are solid - if you accept the premises as true. If you do not, it's easy to disagree.

So what other viewpoints have you read/listened to on ethics or free will besides Harris?

redditisfun21 · 21分前

I find it difficult to mount much an argument against any of Sam's primary believes or opinions, therefore I pretty much find myself agreeing with him on everything - which is I find strangely uncomfortable. I guess I can see why people get obsessed with Sam. My only criticism of Sam is that he can be very boring at times, but then again its not his job to be constantly entertaining.

TheAeolian · 7時間前

Two things jump out at me in the context of such people:

The most vitriolic are those who have listened the least to what he has to say; they are fed a regurgitated opinion like a baby bird. This trend is related to the attention economy and is not isolated to Sam. It shows no sign of slowing down anywhere I have noticed it.
His haters seem even more engaged and obsessed than fans. I find this indicative of the quality of Sam's discourse. Sycophancy would be trite and this thread would not work as a distinct subject if he were the slightest bit of a charlatan.

Lo-G · 7時間前

He can be an insufferable know-it-all.

His stance on religion is dated. There's more and more research showong that religion may be necessary for human valurs to develop.

He has an agenda which he knowingly hides.

He's insufferably pro Israel in pretty much every single way. Refusing to even acknowledge what's happening in Palestine.

These are good reasons that might push one to hatr SH. Though I personally just ignore him when he talks about these topics.

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