Talk:Sam Harris
There are quite a few red links in here, but I think they're articles worth covering, or perhaps they could be handled as sections in this article? --
Ask me about your mother 20:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
- Just finished reading The End of Faith and wrote a section on it. I'll look into getting some consensus on the reviews, reactions, and criticisms to it. I'm picking up some of his newer books for reading soon. --ShadowofLords (talk) 21:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Anti-Islam position
I really think we need to look at his pretty radically (right wing, if you want to be honest) views about Islam and islamic people including his views on racial profiling, per-emptive stricks, etc. --
Godot 20:41, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
- We should probably touch down on this somehow. At the same time, we need to mention he lampshades this by mentioning that other criticisms of Islam often come from the wrong place/for the wrong reasons (christian fundamentalism, racism, general right-wing tomfoolery, etc.). --ShadowofLords (talk) 20:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
- I put in some of the greatest hits to start off. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 00:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
- I'd say that Harris's criticisms of Islam also stem from racism and right-wing tomfoolery, but that's just me being [ableist slur redacted]. Omar (gibber) 02:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- Or it might involve that he read the Koran and the polls which showed extremely high support for targeting and killing civilians to defend Islam. --ShadowofLords (talk) 12:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- I'd say that Harris's criticisms of Islam also stem from racism and right-wing tomfoolery, but that's just me being [ableist slur redacted]. Omar (gibber) 02:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
- I put in some of the greatest hits to start off. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 00:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I put in the suggestion about his being the least recommendable for this reason. I find the most jargon-ey parts of Dawkins' or Dennett's books far more more readable than Harris'. He seems to mostly just geopolitically tendentious to be read by anyone other than the initiated.--Asklepius (talk) 01:41, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
[edit] quote
Don't we want a quote that is more telling of Harris' positions, his actual views and ideas, and not just him quoting some ranodom pro atheism idea? We could quote his brilliant idea that A-rabs should be kept out of the US, or that the *best* way to find terrorists is to target people who look muslim! bunch here --
Godot 15:57, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- We could also try being intelligent and read why he puts forwards those ideas, rather than HURRR DURRRR reactions. Things like this where he puts forward a decent argument on special targeting individuals who appear to be Muslim (his opponent debates around the topic, admitting that it would be an efficient system but prohibitively expensive). --ShadowofLords (talk) 16:51, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- I'd read that, when it first came out. Gotta say, those aren't "good arguments" they are biased grounded arguments that if Bush had said, would have been blasted by the left. There is no valid argument for profiling, given two primary counters: 1) statastically speaking, the average muslim is no more likely to be a terrorist than the average anyone else, since statistically speaking, no one is reasonably "likely" to be a terrorist with no other indicators. 2) Terrorists know we are looking for them. They are not going to put a bomb on an imam. the ARE going to put a bomb on a child. Harris says "don't frisk the kids and old ladys, frisk teh muslims. yeah....
- But really, i was meaning a quote more telling of his views about his world. Atheism perhaps, or the US and politicis, or his own works. putting up the fact that he has cited some stat is about as informative of his views on anything as me saying "the US claims 75% of abortions are done in the first 2 months". wheee!!! that says a lot about me. The page is filled with good quotes, just need someoen who knows Harris well, to choose one. --
Godot 17:43, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- 1) Sure, terrorism is a problem that is not unique to Islam or Muslims. Suicidal terrorism is, for all intents and purposes, however, is unique is Islam. I'm talking huge statistical significance. And, people who hijack planes are generally suicidal terrorists, unless there's some recent discovery that allows terrorists who hijack planes to survive crashing them into buildings. So, when we are looking to stop terrorists at an airport from getting onto planes, we are pretty much always looking for Islamic terrorists.
- 2) If you actually read the article you'd know he addressed this. He's not saying we completely ignore infants. He's not saying we only frisk brown people. Everyone goes through the scanners. Everyone gets their luggage checked. But, rather than purely random additional checks, we can use a combination of knowledge of what we know about suicidal terrorists and random checking (which is a standard effective decision making methodology used in AI and other decision making technologies). We can't pretend we don't know the profile of suicidal terrorists. --ShadowofLords (talk) 18:50, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- "Suicidal terrorism is, for all intents and purposes, however, is unique is Islam." Sure, if you don't count all the rest. This is some beautiful backpedaling, though. Keep digging, Sam!
Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:38, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- But that's exactly it, we DONT know the profile of susidal terrorists. No one has a good description of what a terrorist looks like, acts like, talks like. Unless you know something that's not been published. WE have profiles on particular individual terrorists, but not "the profile of what a generic susicidal terrorsit" looks like. Are they more likely to be women than men? younger rather than old? Will they wear traditional garb or modern garb? Will they have luggage or board without luggage? You know that Isreal does not profile. They aught to be listened to. It's useless to profile, they say, for the very reason that no one knows what a terrorist will look like.
Godot 19:49, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- But that's exactly it, we DONT know the profile of susidal terrorists. No one has a good description of what a terrorist looks like, acts like, talks like. Unless you know something that's not been published. WE have profiles on particular individual terrorists, but not "the profile of what a generic susicidal terrorsit" looks like. Are they more likely to be women than men? younger rather than old? Will they wear traditional garb or modern garb? Will they have luggage or board without luggage? You know that Isreal does not profile. They aught to be listened to. It's useless to profile, they say, for the very reason that no one knows what a terrorist will look like.
- "Suicidal terrorism is, for all intents and purposes, however, is unique is Islam." Sure, if you don't count all the rest. This is some beautiful backpedaling, though. Keep digging, Sam!
You have just proven that you have no idea what you are talking about. Israel profiles EXTENSIVELY, and they even admit it. We know both by statistics that terrorist acts are more likely to be performed by Muslims. We know that they're more likely to be young men. We know that they generally come from middle class families. --ShadowofLords (talk) 21:41, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- Or, as Ann Coulter put it, "Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims – at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America that leaves 7,000 people dead."
ListenerXTalkerX 22:38, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- Ok then, listen to Israel, do some profilin'. At least it won't be like the ghastly situation here in Canuckistan. Look at all those moslems! Look at them! Osaka Sun (talk) 01:33, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- Again, we are talking about instances of suicidal terrorism. Specifically, suicidal terrorism at an airport. I mean, imagine if we were attempting to better protect abortion clinics, planned parenthood, and patients of either from domestic terrorists. Who would we want to pay attention to? Would we be more concerned about the young pregnant woman who is attempting to enter the building, or the middle-aged man with the cross around his neck screaming "Abortion is murder!" Even if he isn't screaming, which presents a more likely threat? Is admitting that white men are more likely to fire-bomb a planned parenthood somehow a terrible affront to human rights?
- On a side note, Ann Coulter is a vicious liar and bigot, one who's policies are all based in right-wing fear mongering. However, even a bigot like Ann Coulter can be right on a single topic (especially if she's right for all the wrong reasons). --ShadowofLords (talk) 03:26, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- Who would we want to pay attention to? Presumably the creepy guys shouting prayers in the lobby instead of the man with the decidedly non-Arabic-sounding name.
ListenerXTalkerX 03:35, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- I think both of them would probably get flagged to be paid close attention to at a minimum in a realistic system. Especially in Israel, where the shoe bomber would have been questioned extensively due to his recent conversion to Islam and his time spent in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Muslims do certainly face racism and prejudice, including economic discrimination, and this can't be ignored. At the same time we can't pretend that we don't face a unique problem with suicidal terrorism and Islam. --ShadowofLords (talk) 04:01, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- According to the article about Israel's profiling, they grilled Donna Shalala — a Maronite Christian of Lebanese-American extraction with no Islamic connections, let alone terrorist connections — due to her dodgy last name.
- Muslims do certainly face racism and prejudice... Of which most profiling is a textbook example.
ListenerXTalkerX 04:12, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- Which is why we need smarter profiling, or perhaps anti-profiling. We don't just profile based off the perceived race of an individual. We can look for behavioral cues and we can check a person's travelling history. We can have access to databases to see if an individual has ties to militant Islamic groups. But we need to acknowledge that taking the 83 year old grandma from Michigan who's never left the country for a cavity search because she was "randomly selected" is going to be a waste of time. We certainly don't want to be pulling over every person who looks "brown-ish", but we at the same time don't need to be feeling up a young seven year old black girl. Would anyone be at least willing to admit that we should probably be paying more attention to young/middle-aged men? --ShadowofLords (talk) 22:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- That reminds me of an article I read once about an incident at an Israeli checkpoint. A veiled woman was passing through and was taken to a private room for a pat-down search, as per her religious scruples; she promptly detonated herself, demolishing a good part of the checkpoint.
- Profiling people based on their known association with terrorist groups or travels to enemy countries is perfectly reasonable, but that is not the kind of profiling that Harris was stumping for.
ListenerXTalkerX 03:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
- Which is why we need smarter profiling, or perhaps anti-profiling. We don't just profile based off the perceived race of an individual. We can look for behavioral cues and we can check a person's travelling history. We can have access to databases to see if an individual has ties to militant Islamic groups. But we need to acknowledge that taking the 83 year old grandma from Michigan who's never left the country for a cavity search because she was "randomly selected" is going to be a waste of time. We certainly don't want to be pulling over every person who looks "brown-ish", but we at the same time don't need to be feeling up a young seven year old black girl. Would anyone be at least willing to admit that we should probably be paying more attention to young/middle-aged men? --ShadowofLords (talk) 22:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- I think both of them would probably get flagged to be paid close attention to at a minimum in a realistic system. Especially in Israel, where the shoe bomber would have been questioned extensively due to his recent conversion to Islam and his time spent in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Muslims do certainly face racism and prejudice, including economic discrimination, and this can't be ignored. At the same time we can't pretend that we don't face a unique problem with suicidal terrorism and Islam. --ShadowofLords (talk) 04:01, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- Who would we want to pay attention to? Presumably the creepy guys shouting prayers in the lobby instead of the man with the decidedly non-Arabic-sounding name.
- Ok then, listen to Israel, do some profilin'. At least it won't be like the ghastly situation here in Canuckistan. Look at all those moslems! Look at them! Osaka Sun (talk) 01:33, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Quotes part two
Since the discussion above migrated, as all good discussions do, I thought one of these two might be good to show something about Harris' views and style? “The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.” ― Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
tags: george-w-bush , god , religion
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“In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.” ― Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation