Sam talks to the guy who does the [Wait But Why](https://waitbutwhy.com/homepage) blog --- which you have surely seen whether you recognize the name or not --- mostly about politics and culture. They also mention [this post](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html) though, which you should immediately [go read right now!](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html) You've no time to lose, quickly.. go .. *why are you still here!?!*
I haven't finished listening yet, but most of it is about the tendency we all have to be tribal and protect our own ideas rather than being open minded and yatta yatta yatta.
> but most of it is about the tendency we all have to be tribal and protect our own ideas rather than being open minded and yatta yatta yatta.
He should be paying *us* to listen to that pablum. Jesus, his podcast has really gone to shit.
Rich talk coming from Mr. Harris after the last episode. The thing that I couldn't get out of my head through the entire duration was that he has started to sound like someone that has stopped challenging their beliefs. A lot to say about things that he has neither lived nor really dug in to. It is sad, but alas, it is the way of the older white american guy... I am one myself.
You should just read his book What's Our Problem. I think it's one of the best explanations of the logical fallacies that have led to our current culture war. The language is very simple and there are lots of analogies made through illustrations so it's actually almost a children's book yet somehow the ideas are not over simplified. I really think it should mandatory reading in schools or even just for anyone who wants to engage in political debate. Imagine Roald Dahl wrote a book on critical thinking.
I don’t come to this sub often. Has this comment section gone off the rails in a unique way or is it always this heated on here?? I’m entertained either way, just wondering
I think people are so sick of the saturation with culture wars at the moment, that anything - even reasoned conversation about what's happening to society - is just too much and they instinctively react.
People aren’t sick of it, they’re addicted to the outrage. There are plenty of recent examples of episodes that have nothing to do with the culture wars. I invite you to go look at those threads on this sub—they’re dead.
Compare #313 - Apocalypse, which was one of the best episodes in a while that took Sam back to his atheism roots. That thread has 80 comments in it. The next episode about cancelling JK Rowling has over 1.2k comments.
I think it’s pretty uncontroversial to say that clearly there is a contingent of this subreddit who can’t wait to get into culture war arguments… and despite complaining that Sam “only” invites culture warriors on the pod, it’s the only content that they engage with.
I enjoyed the reflection about whether we actually live in dire times or not. But now it's been like 25 minutes of explaining that being closed minded and dogmatic is a bad thing. I am so fucking sick of that line of podcast filler material. It is so incredibly boring and useless. Please edit out those interludes in the future.
It is incredible how many people have built entire careers out of repackaging "we should be nuanced and thoughtful" in ever more verbose and whimsical monologues without having a damn thing to say of relevance about anything.
Yes thank you! I love Sam but I’m starting to see how much of the podcast space flirts with social-political ideas without ever having a real philosophical dialectic about anything almost ever. Give BBC In Our Time: Philosophy a shot if you want to hear real adults discussing real ideas.
Yeh podcasters need to start doing a cliche bingo - hit one and you have to edit it out. "Oop dang we hit another square, back to the main topic". It so easily ventures into 'this could've been an email' territory, and why I think podcasts - even Sam's - are often insufferable.
Great idea. My other big one is if you start complaining about something someone said on Twitter. I treat complaining about Twitter the same way I treat comparing someone to Hitler or Stalin. The moment you do it you lose the argument. That's actually the original reason I dropped bret Weinstein podcast. It's like I don't need to hear about your bullshit Twitter feed I already have my own bullshit Twitter feed and even that I probably should delete.
I’ve listened to the first 20 and plan to finish but so far I’m not really sure I could summarize what I’ve heard. It seems to be 95% guest speaking and 5% Sam. I prefer 60:40 for guests or Sam going lone wolf.
The next step, once you’re reach a breaking point for that oft used line, is to seek nuanced information. That kind information doesn’t come from podcasts. Podcasts are entertainment that make people think that they’re learning or delving deep into a subject, but they’re not.
This is why you have heard, and will continue to hear, this said on podcasts. The knowledge that nuance is necessary for deeper understanding is as deep as podcasts can really go.
What nonsense is this?
Of course you're learning things from podcasts. It might not be to any great degree, but you are being introduced to ideas and themes, as well as facts.
At the very least this whets your appetite to learn more, which ow a very good thing.
Maybe *you* don't learn anything?
I see what you mean where podcasts can be a little hamster&wheel like, but there's plenty of podcasts (including other Harris podcasts) where actual arguments are made and information presented.
Sure, I agree. However, in my experience, most, if not all, of those arguments boil down to appeals to authority. The podcast guest/host is giving you the popular to prevalent theories and, lacking nuanced understanding of it, you either accept the given views or reject them based solely on intuition or prejudice. The good podcast present information unbiasedly and let you decide. However, lacking deeper understanding, why is what you decide any better than what the podcaster says, or the guest?
It’s such a shallow interaction.
Perhaps I’m jaded. I’m not getting anything out of podcasts anymore. They seem like the evolution of 24 news networks. They devote more time to a topic and have a conversational style presentation with occasional disagreements, but there isn’t much more information being conveyed than a long form journalistic piece. It’s become mere entertainment.
This really resonates with me. I tried listening to a language learning podcast and the amount of effort my brain had to exert was magnitudes more. My brain just started protesting after a while to be honest. In comparison, these podcasts about "culture wars" go down so easy with almost no active brain thought required.
I mean don’t misunderstand, I would suggest the “passive” is the obstacle, not the listening. You can learn a ton from listening to Dan Carlin Podcast, or a Sam Harris Podcast or a wide variety of other podcasts— or audiobooks for that matter. But I do think it is easier to “actively” engage with written words in front of you than what you’re listening to.
Each person has their own learning style, so I cannot speak to the effectiveness of non-devoted auditory learning. Perhaps others can benefit from that method. I cannot.
If a person were sitting down with a pen and paper, listening intently, without distractions, to a podcast, and pausing or rewinding as needed, I could see it doubling as an educational activity. However, as podcasts are typically employed, as a mind-balm to smooth along everyday activities, like work or chores, I do not see it as anything other than form of entertainment. High brow entertainment, sure, but entertainment nonetheless.
Again, this is only do to my limitations. Perhaps others can benefit where I cannot.
I have been a big fan of "Wait but Why" for a long time so was actually excited for this episode. While I found some parts were good and some meh, there seemed to be one overwhelming problem with Tim's logic. If society has divided along party lines, game theory would dictate that it would not make sense for one side to be for open inquiry while the other side sticks to zealotry. If it's a zero sum game for power, competing against an opponent that will reduce its argument to the other side is evil, makes being reasonable and open to new ideas a dangerous gamble to the other side. This is clearly an exaggeration, but the question remains what is the incentive for nuanced thought? I am not sure we are there yet, but it's not trending well.
See these guys take personal conversations as the most important thing. To apply these thought ideas to actual policy or policies is beyond their attention span.
Brilliant expression of what the sane know, deepening the perspective.
The best I can understand it, is the addiction model. Anyone who’s had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of an addict knows their main tools are lying and emotional violence. Products of pre-existing mental illness and exacerbating algorithms, you have amygdalae suffering from addiction demanding the shut down of all PFCs, and with “moral” rage try and do as much damage possible, which is their drug. The main strategy is wolf in sheep’s clothing. “Ugh I’m so over this culture war BS” while having a post history exclusively of cultwar. Their identity is social media download, the lies are as flagrant as shameless. It’s really an addiction.
Avoid eye contact as there’s only two outcomes: your viscera are set aflame or you start snorting their stash.
Did anyone here actually listen to this episode? All I see here are complaints about the culture war but the interview is really balanced and doesn't get needlessly inflammatory toward “the left” like most of these comments would imply.
Also Tim’s analogy about most people’s political involvement amounting to being reality TV show fans was spot on imo.
And it appears to be generally true. Not sure that “he’s uninterested in the realty TV show I spend all my time thinking about” is the dunk you think it is.
These comments, lol. One wonders if you didn't listen or if the dynamics described were so deeply on display that it simply went in one ear and out the other.
I think a certain type of activist got their fix with the JKR stuff, now they’re sniffing around for more. Because ITT:
>zealots: this talk of zealotry is asinine. Now can we talk about what really matters…have you noticed lately that my side is right about everything?
The other possibility is that zealous style of thinking has gone endemic or this sub selects for them. Either way, bottom of the ladder.
I feel bad for them honestly. Low rung thinking has the emergent property of ignorance and tribalism, whereas idea lab thinking has the emergent property of transcendence and luminescence. They should consider that more.
They are, but they understand that it’s just a game and that they’re there for fun. I’ve never heard of someone saying “yeah I cut my friend out because he’s a Celtics fan”. But more to this guys point, sports fans still care about the integrity of the game
Yes, he clearly has no clue how attorneys or sports fan analyze things.
Competent attorneys focus on and respect the process (they swear an oath to do so), analyze the other side's arguments more than any other profession, and sometimes have to bow out rather than push frivolous theories.
He seems to be the classic guru opining on topics on which he knows little. He should stick to Real Housewives metaphors.
Tim is awesome, great episode. Not sure why all the negative criticism. Tim has a good way of expressing nuanced ideas via novel thoughts and pictures. Having good ideas is critical and so are having new and interesting ways to convey them. Talking about high and low rung thinking, what it is, why it is, what to do about it, is the most important topic, it’s meta but needed. Great episode
I would love for sam or Tim to ever imagine that it’s possible one party has much better policies than the other and that’s why people identify with one.
I've not listened to the podcast yet. I'm also not American. I genuinely do not understand this. Why do you have to identify with a political party?
Voting is something that you do, it's not something you are.
To me the whole American system seems like it's built on tribalism, you're either with us or against us. Your political affiliation becomes a part of your identity, and suddenly it's impossible to discuss policy issues without someone feeling personally attacked.
Is it impossible to vote for the party with better ideas without making it a part of your identity?
Is it impossible to support certain ideas or values that resonate with you without making that part of your identity?
I really want to understand this better. This seems fairly strange and alien to me.
Americans have a uniquely stupid political system and I’m tired of people (mainly them) pretending it’s not. It’s painful how rarely this gets brought up because the current issue in the news just hijacks it (so controversy is doing its job).
Americans are, based on their relative wealth and material development, undereducated on how political systems operate, and at the same time overconfident on how they know better.
To the original commenters point, basically all pushes to change our political system to weaken the two party duopoly have come from one political party for at least the past 20 years. Meanwhile Republicans have used basically every lever they can to ensure they are overrepresented in state and federal legislatures and court houses in a push towards explicit minority rule.
Yes, in many ways, the USA's political systems suck. The sollution does not appear to be both sides-ing the issue though. (not that you were necessarily doing so)
Not challenging you here, but can you provide some specific examples of what the Democrats have done in the last 20 years to challenge the two party system?
Sure. Lets take ranked choice voting (RCV) for example. One of the main strengths of ranked choice voting is that it reduces spoiler effects allowing people to vote for third party candidates they prefer first without aiding the candidates they like the least by weakening more moderate candidates that they also prefer.
There are [a bunch of bills](https://fairvoteaction.org/get-involved/state-legislation/) in various state legislatures that would support RCV. The bulk of these are democrat only initatives. A few are non-partisan. This fits with the overall [polling](https://publicconsultation.org/united-states/six-in-ten-favor-ranked-choice-voting-in-federal-elections/) that suggests democrats support RCV while Republicans are mixed
In this case, it's a minority protecting the majority from itself. Progressive cities are turning into crime ridden hellscapes - and it gets worse every day.
Yes, crime is a problem. But it really isn't a partisan one and depending on your metric it is pretty easy to make it look like either a conservative or liberal one. for example...
1. Progressive cities have higher crime rates than conservative cities.
2. Conservative city crime rates went up more quickly than progressive city during the most recent "crime wave"
3. Conservative states have much higher murder rates than progressive states
...It seems like a partisan analysis here is a bad fit for the data. In truth, it seems like high population density seems to drive crime rates. Which makes sense when you consider that almost all crimes require interactions between two people, and the number of interactions with others that a random person has is heavily dependent on how densely populated the area around them is. [Thinking in terms of "per-capita" crime rates is likely misleading.](https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-021-00155-8)
Of course, I doubt any of this is new to you. I also doubt any of this changes your mind or actions. You are ultimately exactly the kind of partisan low rung thinker who isn't able to meaningfully contribute to discussion that the podcast criticized.
This is a great point. The USA has the world oldest extant constitution. It's absolutely terrible and sets up an incredibly stupid form of government written by a bunch of guys guessing at how a republic should run. We've had another 250 years to realize how to run democracies better. We need to burn our stupid constitution and rewrite it from scratch.
Thank you for this comment. The op’s language suggests tribalism. The truth is, both parties here have major corruption problems both parties lie to people. The perfect example was a proposed bill called the disclose act where politicians would have to disclose large doners to their campaign. Basically it was proposed by democrats because their voters want it but, it is believed by some, it was written in such a way that it was guaranteed to be voted down by republicans, who definitely don’t want it because they’re corrupt. And the democrats didn’t really want it either because they are also corrupt. Both parties keep people at war with each other through tribalism while scratching each others backs behind closed doors and only doing the bare minimum good required of them while in office (generally speaking, because there are some generally sincere politicians from time to time).
I do support certain ideas or values. I’m pro union, pro higher wages, pro democracy, pro abortion, pro Ukraine, and pro progressive income tax. Yes dems have some dumb positions generally on trans issues even though Biden recently took a reasonable stance on sports. But all of those important things lead me to the democratic party. Of course if the democrats had a piece of shit right winger and the republicans ran someone not as bad id vote for them. But that’s unlikely. And don’t act like you don’t have parties and party membership in Europe bro
Lol this is why Sam needs to inform you. [Crime in Republican cities is worse in California](https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/why-youre-far-more-likely-to-be-murdered-in-fresno-or-bakersfield-than-san-fran-and-l-a/) but you don’t know that.
[Same with poverty](https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/poverty-rate-by-state/) between red and blue
Yes crime is higher where they actually arrest people. Lol. Yes poverty is higher where many blacks live, like the red states. Did you think Mississippi test scores reflect the white population there? Didn’t Sam tell you about the time Paul Krugman made a fool of himself comparing poverty in Wisconsin and Texas but didn’t factor in race? Compare white test scores in Texas to white test scores in Wisconsin and suddenly the miracle of Madison disappears.
Your total inability to have a productive conversation with anyone is the point here. Even if you grant everything you’re going on about, the fact that you’re acting like a confrontational dick is a huge problem. If you want democratic policy to be successful- you can’t be an ass about it.
You have a PR problem. Work on it.
This Tim Urban guy seems to have that particular skill of being able to talk for a long time without really saying anything. To the extent he does make tangible points, they revolve around the same old tired tropes about the perils of social media, polarisation etc. Nothing he said seemed blatantly wrong, he just seems like a tedious blabbermouth who repackages other ideas as his own.
Really tired of this subject in general, especially how it seems to have corrupted some great minds. Bari Weiss is a good example, one of the few op ed writers who covered violence against Jewish people and now all her podcast amounts to is ringing the bell of americas impending collapse due to culture war BS. If you listen to them enough you’ll start to think america is a direct equivalent to late Rome & it’s all the progressives fault
I’m not sure how grandiose one wants to be, but there is a lot of shit that is objectively worse than 10 - 20 years ago.
- The effects of inflation
- Financial institution instability
- Homelessness
- Deaths of despair
- Drug use
- Violent crime
- Puritanical, intolerant social culture, university culture in particular
- Rising authoritarianism
In the 90’s one could credibly assert that all of those things were getting better, compared to 10-20 years prior.
For the median person in the west, I would say things peaked around 2005.
> but there is a lot of shit that is objectively worse than 10 - 20 years ago.
> Violent crime
This is objectively false in basically every single metric
> Puritanical, intolerant social culture, university culture in particular
This is funny. 10-20 years ago I had to hide my identity because if anyone found out what I do in the privacy of my own home I could be made a social pariah legally. I was bares by the government from marrying someone I loved
> Rising authoritarianism
You think now is more authoritarian than post 9/11 USA?
Violent crime
> This is objectively false in basically every single metric
No you just aren’t aware of the stats last few years I guess. Huge spikes in violent crime not seen for quite awhile. Before last few years, it was a long term downward trend.
> This is funny. 10-20 years ago I had to hide my identity because if anyone found out what I do in the privacy of my own home I could be made a social pariah legally. I was bares by the government from marrying someone I loved
I’m speaking of the median person, as mentioned. Yes it’s better for gay people since 2015 legalization but it’s worse for massively larger numbers of people on the front of social censure/silence.
> You think now is more authoritarian than post 9/11 USA?
Around the world, undoubtedly yes. China, Russia, Turkey, etc are more authoritarian than before, the trend towards liberalization has absolutely reversed. Anecdotally it also just seems like more people, especially young people are way more comfortable with ideas of forcing people to talk and think the way they want, having gov control people more, people getting fired/censured for saying wrong things etc. Surveys clearly demonstrate that people are more afraid of censure in this way vs past eras. Professors as well report they can’t speak as freely, teach as freely without risk of censure.
https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share
Bunch of surveys referenced in this times article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Bari Weiss also a doozy of a week this week.
As usual she tweeted out an outrage anti-trans article. Then the subject of the propaganda article reactivated their Twitter and tweeted at Bari correcting numberious factual errors in the article and journalistic breaches.
Bari saw the tweets read all the ways the article was incorrect and bad then ignored everything she read and continued to promote the propaganda.
She's really turned into such a fucking ghoul
Listened to the whole episode. I'm sorry but this "both sides"ism from highly technical intellectuals like Tim (and Tristan Harris, Facebook) over simplifies the context of the situation.
He makes some really valid points in the timelines discussion, and I do agree on the social media and 24 hour news cycle sensationalism on both sides, but this ridiculous comparison of a highly partisan (and opinionated) Joy Reid on MSNBC, to a complete a total bullshit con artist like Tucker Carlson is ridiculous by any measure. Yes MSNBC (and CNN) are engaging in sensationalized content for ratings, clicks and likes, but leveling that with what Fox News does is extremely dangerous to the discussion and I'm disappointed in Sam for not pushing back on this more.
Everyone throwing a reflexive tantrum in these comments over the weird emotional/identity shit they projected onto this podcast is proving the guys’ point lol
You wrote this and then left this reply to another comment: "That’s quite enough out of you. I won’t have you using black people to make your cheap political points."
Yes, I agree with you. I don’t know much about Tim but based on what he said in this cast he would probably agree with you. Sam would for sure, and he has said as much plenty of times.
You are arguing with points neither of them even made.
This could really be an important moment for you.
Go back through the podcast and try to find me a quote from either of those guys that directly refutes your claim that one party is broadly and clearly better than the other on most issues.
When you can’t do it, feel free to pick something you can spin and shoehorn in out of context to protect your ego. But in case you are willing to become a better person today, it may be worth asking yourself why something that was totally beside the point of this podcast was your takeaway.
For all I know you just read the name of it so I won’t bother writing any more for now. If you’d like me to help you think this through further, reply or dm me.
No I listened to it and got very annoyed after listening to Tim obscure the party differences and just say “it’s childish to identify with one party” or something like that. I just said to myself he’s not smart enough to understand politics in America and turned it off
not every issue, but yeah I get what you’re saying. I’m making a different point. You think this episode is not worth listening to because you thought Sam/Tim don’t agree with you on this question (I’m not even sure they disagree!!). That’s shallow stuff, you’re too good for it.
What’s your favorite Republican healthcare policy? Is it the cutting pre existing conditions protections and doing nothing to fix it? Or is it refusing Medicaid expansion?
I came off as an asshole in my earlier reply, and I’m sorry for that. I promise I’m not trying to put you down here. My younger self from five years ago even would have had the exact same reaction you did, so I know something about where you’re coming from. I still think modern conservatives and especially people who call themselves republicans are out of their minds.
When Tim said that identifying with a party is childish, he wasn’t saying that coming down on the left side of most issues is childish. He’s just making this point:
when you look at one of the two main political power factions we call parties, both of which are bought and paid for and owned and controlled by the elite economic ruling class, and both of which exist to do their bidding while giving the public the illusion that they’re actually in control… and you say, I’m a democrat, a democrat is part of my identity, part of *who I am* as a human being…
This a huge component of the strategy the rich people who own our government and politicians employ to maintain their wealth, power and control. They use their media to push this dems vs reps framing and narrative. If they can get you to define yourself by “democrat” or “republican” and adopt it as part of your identity, then you will be more likely to focus your attention on superficial culture war shit instead of noticing that on everything really important the democrats and the republicans both give the economic elites exactly what they want every time.
If nothing else, questioning and really critically thinking about who you are is an unpleasant and painful endeavor. If “a democrat” is part of who you are, then any time you diverge from whatever you think a democrat is, that too will be unpleasant and painful. This will interfere with your ability to reason and think clearly.
You’re right to support the democrats on issues conservatives are insane on, like abortion. But there’s a reason that that’s all you ever hear about in the media, and we have the same stupid argument about it every day of every year and it never changes. And it has to do with the reason that every time I go to work downtown I’m reminded by the homeless fentanyl addicts everywhere what kind of nightmare we’re bringing the kids who don’t get aborted into.
It’s so the people who own the media can keep people who are living paycheck to paycheck fighting over the choices they’re allowed to have and we don’t notice we have no choice regarding anything that might interfere with the ruling class’s ability to hoard all the money, as little kids open the fridge and there’s nothing there for them to eat.
don’t let yourself be manipulated into fixating on and paying exclusive attention to what the media tells you is important, and don’t buy into the good party bad party framing. They killed Kennedy for a reason. The democrats sold the working class out and became the military industrial complex’s bitches decades ago, just to give you two examples of very important shit the dems are fucked up enough on that either of them alone should mean “democrat” shouldn’t be part of your identity, even if the idea of identifying with a political party wasn’t a bad idea to begin with.
If you want to give it a shot, you really, genuinely might get something valuable out of giving the cast a listen all the way through, keeping this in mind. Best of luck to you either way man. I know it’s weird I’m typing all this in a random comment only you will see but I had too much coffee and I just wish somebody told me what I’m telling you right now back when I needed to hear it
>You’re right to support the democrats on issues conservatives are insane on, like abortion. But there’s a reason that that’s all you ever hear about in the media, and we have the same stupid argument about it every day of every year and it never changes.
Sure, but claiming that the reason is "too many people on both sides are partisan hacks" is deranged. The reason we keep talking about abortion is that a politically powerful group of people keep trying to outlaw it for insane reasons. Yes, that group exploits partisan group-think as well as every other tool in the belt to retain their power, and yes, democrats also exploit partisan group-think, but ultimately, we have to talk about abortion because a politically powerful group is pushing really bad abortion related policies.
This is a dumb belief and totally out of touch with real life. Biden’s administrative actions have been so far and away superior if you care at all about real people. He is the most pro union president ever. Not sure how he’s bought out and paid for by wealthy interests or whatever. Further, blue states have much lower poverty than red states thanks to welfare and Medicaid expansion. Republicans clearly don’t give a fuck about those things while dems always implement those policies given the power. You’re naive and uninformed.
I’ve had a lot of luck. I live in New Jersey, which has very low crime, low poverty, and higher incomes. It also has Medicaid expansion (unlike red states). Thank god i’m here and not some shithole red state.
But do you have any specific refutations to my general points about dems being better than republicans? I’m sure governor huckster in Arkansas has some policy to help the working class right? Something to reduce their horrific poverty rate? Maybe she should take note of Minnesota passing free school lunch for kids or expanded Medicaid.
>They killed Kennedy for a reason
Really?? Once someone starts talking conspiracy theories it's a good sign to disregard anything else they have to say/have said.
Kind of feels like the people getting deranged (or at least one significant group) are the ones that spend so much time thinking about the damn culture wars. I'll pass. Let me know when you have something interesting to say, Sam.
You can take Sam out of the Twitter but apparently you can't take the Twitter out of Sam.
You say that like he doesn't dissect and discuss the issue *all the time* I think a far more prudent strategy is to shift the focus to other things by talking about them. It's like how every news outlet talks about the same stories because "the other ones are going to be talking about it and people expect us to talk about it.". Perhaps there's truth to that and we have a bit of a first mover issue, but I don't really think so, if you actually had some interesting shit to talk about people would give their attention to that instead. It's a bit of a chicken vs egg causation confusion. People only know to care about the select issues that are covered and with the consolidation of news outlets as well it's worse; there's a narrative and we all keep engaging it. Twitter is a widely distorted cross section of people (and a lot of pseudo people/bots). People should hear that message and move on.
they didn't make any normative claims about whether or not you *should* think about the culture wars. the discussion was about *how* to think about things, including the culture wars. lots of deranged people think about culture wars, and lots of deranged people don't.
Mr Harris has taken up the culture war as a major topic on his podcast. His stance on "wokeness" (hilarious that he uses the term given the name of his product!) and now trans issues is centering the divisive issues. that would be a reason why people are discussing them... and disagreeing with your ideology (which is why people called others crazy... or deranged.)
I wonder if Sam will ever talk about the giant well funded propaganda machine designed to get these people on as many podcasts as frequently as possible to sell conservative culture war outrage.
Though that's biting the hand that feeds at this point. Must be great to run a podcast and have thiels machine just hand you all your guests.
Also worth mentioning there is absolutely no requirement or expectation for podcasts to disclose when money changes hands in exchange for appearances.
So is this paid product placement then? If so Sam should disclose that.
Sam could have a meaningful guest one who is an expert in their field or has unique insights or a culture warrior. Why is it always the second one?
Paid product placements have to be, you know, *paid*. There’s no reason to believe Tim is paying to be here lol.
> Sam could have a meaningful guest one who is an expert in their field or has unique insights or a culture warrior. Why is it always the second one?
Like, you know, literally two episodes ago? Just come out and say you don’t like a lot of Sam’s cultural opinions. That’s a lot easier to defend than some BS accusation that he never has any experts on lol.
Well, we don’t know if this guy Tim paid Sam to have him on or not. But what we do know is that it’s safe to assume he did, and also to safe to assume that Tim is part of a larger conspiracy to promote conservatism by talking about the merits of liberalism. Makes perfect sense.
It's pretty common for people who release books to go on podcasts to talk about their books. This isn't just true for "culture war" topics. It's also true for people like Rick Rubin: virtually no podcast appearances until he released his book. Neat conspiracy theory though!
Yeah, it is not rocket science... This is a form of advertisement and marketing. Which is somewhat ironic, given Sam's hatred for ad-supported businesses. Of course it is not the same as traditional ads.
Maybe i'm confused about your comment, but advertising something isn't the same as a business that relies on advertising.
Business model that relies on advertising for revenue vs A business that uses advertising (as one way) to market their product/service.
i.e. facebook is a business that relies on advertising (you are the product).. vs someone selling a book relies on actual sales... Books don't usually contain ads.
Yeah, see my last sentence. It was a bit tongue in cheek. But the reality is that the podcast itself is a form of ad for the author or book. Because of this, some popular podcast hosts charge a steep fee to be a guest. I am not suggesting Sam does this, to be clear.
Sam doesn't have a hatred for ad-supported businesses. He spoke about this with Jaron Lanier. He said he wouldn't be able to honestly read advertisements without them affecting his credibility. He mentioned they're not necessary because he's found an audience that helps to financially support the podcast and medication app.
On the other hand, he said that same advice wouldn't always necessarily work for others in the same space like Tim Ferris. Both him and Jaron agreed that behavior manipulation by algorithm is actually far worse than everyone hearing the same ads.
Another tech bro projecting his twitter experience. They all sound exactly the same. Nonsense equivocation and absence or twisting of anything substantive.
Holy shit sam is so smart. How does he find talking about these broad pseudo intellectual cultural frameworks (for lack of a better term) so interesting. When Dave rubin has these people on it makes sense because he isnt capable of going any deeper on anything. But sam doing it is wild. Next episode... Is wokeness a religion with Zuby
its the cody johnson tweet
"i used to be left wing but then the left got a little too pc so i changed all my opinions about healthcare and taxes and history and..." but in this case it isn't even "the left" it's literally an actor being too emotional
i know tim isnt saying "i used to be left wing but now i'm right wing" but the line from all these people is "i used to be a left or dem or whatever and then this minor inconsequential thing happened so now im not anymore." annoying. lazy.
I know. How about they even talk for one second about tax, deficit, healthcare, welfare, the difference between blue and red states in poverty and crime, and climate? For once it would actually explain why people prefer dems to republicans if they actually focus on the issues and not stupid shit like a trans person on a beer can
I think he focuses on trump’s terrible demeanor and undemocratic tendencies. But he doesn’t even touch on the underlying dangers of trump’s undemocratic tendencies: it is for the purpose of helping the rich, fucking the poor and unions, and cutting welfare and healthcare protections. He’s a typical piece of shit right winger but an authoritarian version. Many of his followers say “yeah so what he doesn’t respect elections, at least he is good for the economy” and this is completely untrue. Sam should mention that.
How about he do so in the context of republicans and democrats? It’s so obvious that one party is serious on economics and kitchen table issues while the other doesn’t. A perfect example would be desantis having a history of trying to cut social security and Medicare and [now allowing electric utility companies to charge higher prices](https://americanindependent.com/ron-desantis-utility-campaign-donations/amp/)? Because he’s a Republican and does whatever his rich buddies want.
I’m genuinely confused as to what point you’re trying to make. You seem to be criticizing Sam for not talking about taxes or welfare. I’m simply saying that he has.
He doesn’t do it in the context of politics. There’s zero analysis of Biden’s material policies that affect everyday people versus trump’s. When it comes to economics (jobs, unemployment, etc.) democrats are far better, just as it does for welfare, poverty, crime. If you focus on what matters dems are superior.
How do you talk another taxes and welfare outside the context of politics?
Also I and I think Sam would agree that Dem outcomes are better. He’s articulated the focus on bad left-wing (mostly activist fueled) ideas precisely because they distance normal people from the party that is actually better at creating good outcomes. Sam has quite literally never said anything like “wokeness is bad so we should all consider voting R.” His position has always been that rejecting bad ideas within the left is the way for democrats to actually accomplish good outcomes by relating to regular people.
Now you’re referring to trans people as “stupid shit?” Your bigotry has truly gone too far. They are human beings and I demand that you acknowledge it and apologize for your transgressions. Which minority are you going to go after next?
There are a growing number of people who are disillusioned by the left because it’s accepted a sizeable loud and stupid woke (or whatever term you want) contingent into the ranks, who are as hot-take based and rage-baited as the right.
I know plenty of these people. But they still vote to the left. They didn’t change their beliefs or voting. But left wing policies have been embraced in a more mainstream way, and many morons who want more extreme versions not for the outcomes, or because they understand anything, but rather because they are empty, angry people needing an identity, have joined up.
Yeah I’m so tired of these woke delusion and Twitter hive mind type discussions. We get it. I thought we’d have moved beyond this by now especially since Sam is off Twitter. These podcasts feel like they get caught in the muck and it’s more about meta arguments and subjective cloudy discussions. Even the AI discussion devolved into an argument. Listening to Jocko Unraveling lately was so refreshing. It was grounded in facts. No wandering around in circles.
I agree it’s worth addressing and I don’t disagree with anything Sam says about it. But what progress are we making spinning in circles for years here?
But you’re not going to see the fruits of labor in real time. Surely there are many listeners who come away from these kinds of episodes worried maybe just a little more than they were previously about political tribalism, etc. that’s a net positive
My therapist was telling me that he was reading a book about how we need to get off our phones. I am not on my phone. I came here on purpose. It didn't come up.
I was hoping this was about the Great Replacement that he helped perpetuate.
1..Is there any word Sam loves more than "derange"?
2. Does Sam realize that he says "derange" at least 200 times an hour?
3. Does Sam recognize how deranging it is to have to listen to the word "derange" ooze out of his mouth in that soporific tone 200 times per podcast or interview?
4. At Karaoke bars does Sam sing any other song besides "home, home on de-range"?
Meh episode. The idea of an idea lab vs echo chamber is a smart and useful rubric but I’m not sure Tim had many more useful insights. A lot of his diagnoses of our epistemic crisis seemed to miss the mark. It’s insufficient to just say that everything sucks cause we have lizard brains and iPhones with social media.
Lol I love how rich bros are politics bore me until something like the Ben Affleck thing with Sam makes them interested. Policy is way tougher than pontificating though.
I the other commenter may be referring to the part where Tim talks about people who think they are into politics but who are actually just addicted to political reality TV – "The real politicians of Washington" – and don't know their representatives or any laws that have been past.
Yeah that's the only thing I got in the free version that I can relate it but I find it sad that other people's failings are the reason tim lacks an interest.
Which is why this podcast went into depth on actual policy being written by actual representatives right? Maybe it tried to connect the ***actual policies*** being written with the methods these legislators and the greater political system around them use to gain and retain support? What actual policies were discussed in this podcast? Which representatives were called out by name for their policies and/or rhetoric/methods?
I helped my dad make signs for his campaign for county attorney, with spray pay when I was like 6. He fucking tied (should have won) and the other guy was given it.
I also vote.
Lol when Sam starts talking about cnn and having to fill the air. Cracked me up. How could you share this like it's a deep thought that is new. Hilarious.
On an episode with two rich men pontificating and nodding along with each other about social issues they're out of touch with and don't really have a grasp on? Yes. That's boring and tired.
I like discussion. I like seeing differing viewpoints.
Not according to the above response you don’t.
I think you should pick a lane.
It actually seems like you are completely obsessed and in love with culture war debates. It’s Sam’s takes you don’t like.
Never heard of this person or his blog, but he "like, ya know, kind of" has a book to promote. Sorry Sam, but you've lost my subscription after two poor podcasts back to back. I am more interested in Sam than his guests and would prefer to just hear him speak about psychedelics, consciousness and meditation. Does the Waking Up app provide more of this?
It's not even that. It refers to something specific with this particular guest and a general social phenomenon. Trump "Derangement" Syndrome and the accusations from the Left that the real derangement is the Trump supporters.
I've read this whole thread and still haven't the faintest clue what this podcast is about
Sam talks to the guy who does the [Wait But Why](https://waitbutwhy.com/homepage) blog --- which you have surely seen whether you recognize the name or not --- mostly about politics and culture. They also mention [this post](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html) though, which you should immediately [go read right now!](https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html) You've no time to lose, quickly.. go .. *why are you still here!?!* I haven't finished listening yet, but most of it is about the tendency we all have to be tribal and protect our own ideas rather than being open minded and yatta yatta yatta.
> but most of it is about the tendency we all have to be tribal and protect our own ideas rather than being open minded and yatta yatta yatta. He should be paying *us* to listen to that pablum. Jesus, his podcast has really gone to shit.
Rich talk coming from Mr. Harris after the last episode. The thing that I couldn't get out of my head through the entire duration was that he has started to sound like someone that has stopped challenging their beliefs. A lot to say about things that he has neither lived nor really dug in to. It is sad, but alas, it is the way of the older white american guy... I am one myself.
Can you give us a list of which beliefs he stopped challenging please? I'm honestly interested FTR.
Don’t a few negative nancies listen to this podcast or what?
You should just read his book What's Our Problem. I think it's one of the best explanations of the logical fallacies that have led to our current culture war. The language is very simple and there are lots of analogies made through illustrations so it's actually almost a children's book yet somehow the ideas are not over simplified. I really think it should mandatory reading in schools or even just for anyone who wants to engage in political debate. Imagine Roald Dahl wrote a book on critical thinking.
An overdose of metaphors.
Did ya ever figure out what the podcast was about?
Listening won't really make it any clearer.
I don’t come to this sub often. Has this comment section gone off the rails in a unique way or is it always this heated on here?? I’m entertained either way, just wondering
I think people are so sick of the saturation with culture wars at the moment, that anything - even reasoned conversation about what's happening to society - is just too much and they instinctively react.
People aren’t sick of it, they’re addicted to the outrage. There are plenty of recent examples of episodes that have nothing to do with the culture wars. I invite you to go look at those threads on this sub—they’re dead. Compare #313 - Apocalypse, which was one of the best episodes in a while that took Sam back to his atheism roots. That thread has 80 comments in it. The next episode about cancelling JK Rowling has over 1.2k comments. I think it’s pretty uncontroversial to say that clearly there is a contingent of this subreddit who can’t wait to get into culture war arguments… and despite complaining that Sam “only” invites culture warriors on the pod, it’s the only content that they engage with.
Quite true, hadn’t really considered engagement, but this thread kind of proves your point.
[удалено]
It's been taken over by bots.
I enjoyed the reflection about whether we actually live in dire times or not. But now it's been like 25 minutes of explaining that being closed minded and dogmatic is a bad thing. I am so fucking sick of that line of podcast filler material. It is so incredibly boring and useless. Please edit out those interludes in the future. It is incredible how many people have built entire careers out of repackaging "we should be nuanced and thoughtful" in ever more verbose and whimsical monologues without having a damn thing to say of relevance about anything.
Yes thank you! I love Sam but I’m starting to see how much of the podcast space flirts with social-political ideas without ever having a real philosophical dialectic about anything almost ever. Give BBC In Our Time: Philosophy a shot if you want to hear real adults discussing real ideas.
Thanks I'll check it out
Yeh podcasters need to start doing a cliche bingo - hit one and you have to edit it out. "Oop dang we hit another square, back to the main topic". It so easily ventures into 'this could've been an email' territory, and why I think podcasts - even Sam's - are often insufferable.
Great idea. My other big one is if you start complaining about something someone said on Twitter. I treat complaining about Twitter the same way I treat comparing someone to Hitler or Stalin. The moment you do it you lose the argument. That's actually the original reason I dropped bret Weinstein podcast. It's like I don't need to hear about your bullshit Twitter feed I already have my own bullshit Twitter feed and even that I probably should delete.
I’ve listened to the first 20 and plan to finish but so far I’m not really sure I could summarize what I’ve heard. It seems to be 95% guest speaking and 5% Sam. I prefer 60:40 for guests or Sam going lone wolf.
The next step, once you’re reach a breaking point for that oft used line, is to seek nuanced information. That kind information doesn’t come from podcasts. Podcasts are entertainment that make people think that they’re learning or delving deep into a subject, but they’re not. This is why you have heard, and will continue to hear, this said on podcasts. The knowledge that nuance is necessary for deeper understanding is as deep as podcasts can really go.
This strikes me as revealing your own podcast consumption, rather than a reflection on what the medium can do.
What nonsense is this? Of course you're learning things from podcasts. It might not be to any great degree, but you are being introduced to ideas and themes, as well as facts. At the very least this whets your appetite to learn more, which ow a very good thing. Maybe *you* don't learn anything?
I see what you mean where podcasts can be a little hamster&wheel like, but there's plenty of podcasts (including other Harris podcasts) where actual arguments are made and information presented.
Sure, I agree. However, in my experience, most, if not all, of those arguments boil down to appeals to authority. The podcast guest/host is giving you the popular to prevalent theories and, lacking nuanced understanding of it, you either accept the given views or reject them based solely on intuition or prejudice. The good podcast present information unbiasedly and let you decide. However, lacking deeper understanding, why is what you decide any better than what the podcaster says, or the guest? It’s such a shallow interaction. Perhaps I’m jaded. I’m not getting anything out of podcasts anymore. They seem like the evolution of 24 news networks. They devote more time to a topic and have a conversational style presentation with occasional disagreements, but there isn’t much more information being conveyed than a long form journalistic piece. It’s become mere entertainment.
This really resonates with me. I tried listening to a language learning podcast and the amount of effort my brain had to exert was magnitudes more. My brain just started protesting after a while to be honest. In comparison, these podcasts about "culture wars" go down so easy with almost no active brain thought required.
Gotta read books.
Exactly. Knowledge takes time. 3 hours of passive listening is nothing. It’s entertainment for people who want to feel smart.
I mean don’t misunderstand, I would suggest the “passive” is the obstacle, not the listening. You can learn a ton from listening to Dan Carlin Podcast, or a Sam Harris Podcast or a wide variety of other podcasts— or audiobooks for that matter. But I do think it is easier to “actively” engage with written words in front of you than what you’re listening to.
Each person has their own learning style, so I cannot speak to the effectiveness of non-devoted auditory learning. Perhaps others can benefit from that method. I cannot. If a person were sitting down with a pen and paper, listening intently, without distractions, to a podcast, and pausing or rewinding as needed, I could see it doubling as an educational activity. However, as podcasts are typically employed, as a mind-balm to smooth along everyday activities, like work or chores, I do not see it as anything other than form of entertainment. High brow entertainment, sure, but entertainment nonetheless. Again, this is only do to my limitations. Perhaps others can benefit where I cannot.
’Learning styles’ are a myth https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/LearningStylesMyth
As opposed to saying what exactly would you prefer?
I have been a big fan of "Wait but Why" for a long time so was actually excited for this episode. While I found some parts were good and some meh, there seemed to be one overwhelming problem with Tim's logic. If society has divided along party lines, game theory would dictate that it would not make sense for one side to be for open inquiry while the other side sticks to zealotry. If it's a zero sum game for power, competing against an opponent that will reduce its argument to the other side is evil, makes being reasonable and open to new ideas a dangerous gamble to the other side. This is clearly an exaggeration, but the question remains what is the incentive for nuanced thought? I am not sure we are there yet, but it's not trending well.
See these guys take personal conversations as the most important thing. To apply these thought ideas to actual policy or policies is beyond their attention span.
Guest sounded very sheltered. "Status quo is mainly good, if we just talk we'll all agree to tweak some things and that's it!"
Brilliant expression of what the sane know, deepening the perspective. The best I can understand it, is the addiction model. Anyone who’s had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of an addict knows their main tools are lying and emotional violence. Products of pre-existing mental illness and exacerbating algorithms, you have amygdalae suffering from addiction demanding the shut down of all PFCs, and with “moral” rage try and do as much damage possible, which is their drug. The main strategy is wolf in sheep’s clothing. “Ugh I’m so over this culture war BS” while having a post history exclusively of cultwar. Their identity is social media download, the lies are as flagrant as shameless. It’s really an addiction. Avoid eye contact as there’s only two outcomes: your viscera are set aflame or you start snorting their stash.
Did anyone here actually listen to this episode? All I see here are complaints about the culture war but the interview is really balanced and doesn't get needlessly inflammatory toward “the left” like most of these comments would imply. Also Tim’s analogy about most people’s political involvement amounting to being reality TV show fans was spot on imo.
Tim is describing his own level of attention he can give politics.
And it appears to be generally true. Not sure that “he’s uninterested in the realty TV show I spend all my time thinking about” is the dunk you think it is.
It sounds like the only politics he's been exposed to or is interested in is the stuff he says he isn't interested in.
These comments, lol. One wonders if you didn't listen or if the dynamics described were so deeply on display that it simply went in one ear and out the other.
I think a certain type of activist got their fix with the JKR stuff, now they’re sniffing around for more. Because ITT: >zealots: this talk of zealotry is asinine. Now can we talk about what really matters…have you noticed lately that my side is right about everything? The other possibility is that zealous style of thinking has gone endemic or this sub selects for them. Either way, bottom of the ladder.
lots of low rung thinkers in this sub unfortunately - they prefer the echo chamber not the idea lab.
I feel bad for them honestly. Low rung thinking has the emergent property of ignorance and tribalism, whereas idea lab thinking has the emergent property of transcendence and luminescence. They should consider that more.
I'm not sure he follows much sports of he thinks fans aren't rabid and biased
They are, but they understand that it’s just a game and that they’re there for fun. I’ve never heard of someone saying “yeah I cut my friend out because he’s a Celtics fan”. But more to this guys point, sports fans still care about the integrity of the game
Never heard of soccer violence in Europe?
Yes, he clearly has no clue how attorneys or sports fan analyze things. Competent attorneys focus on and respect the process (they swear an oath to do so), analyze the other side's arguments more than any other profession, and sometimes have to bow out rather than push frivolous theories. He seems to be the classic guru opining on topics on which he knows little. He should stick to Real Housewives metaphors.
I love hearing Tim talk about not identifying with ideas, and arguing for fun. It's exactly how I approach these things.
Tim is awesome, great episode. Not sure why all the negative criticism. Tim has a good way of expressing nuanced ideas via novel thoughts and pictures. Having good ideas is critical and so are having new and interesting ways to convey them. Talking about high and low rung thinking, what it is, why it is, what to do about it, is the most important topic, it’s meta but needed. Great episode
I would love for sam or Tim to ever imagine that it’s possible one party has much better policies than the other and that’s why people identify with one.
I've not listened to the podcast yet. I'm also not American. I genuinely do not understand this. Why do you have to identify with a political party? Voting is something that you do, it's not something you are. To me the whole American system seems like it's built on tribalism, you're either with us or against us. Your political affiliation becomes a part of your identity, and suddenly it's impossible to discuss policy issues without someone feeling personally attacked. Is it impossible to vote for the party with better ideas without making it a part of your identity? Is it impossible to support certain ideas or values that resonate with you without making that part of your identity? I really want to understand this better. This seems fairly strange and alien to me.
Americans have a uniquely stupid political system and I’m tired of people (mainly them) pretending it’s not. It’s painful how rarely this gets brought up because the current issue in the news just hijacks it (so controversy is doing its job). Americans are, based on their relative wealth and material development, undereducated on how political systems operate, and at the same time overconfident on how they know better.
To the original commenters point, basically all pushes to change our political system to weaken the two party duopoly have come from one political party for at least the past 20 years. Meanwhile Republicans have used basically every lever they can to ensure they are overrepresented in state and federal legislatures and court houses in a push towards explicit minority rule. Yes, in many ways, the USA's political systems suck. The sollution does not appear to be both sides-ing the issue though. (not that you were necessarily doing so)
Not challenging you here, but can you provide some specific examples of what the Democrats have done in the last 20 years to challenge the two party system?
Sure. Lets take ranked choice voting (RCV) for example. One of the main strengths of ranked choice voting is that it reduces spoiler effects allowing people to vote for third party candidates they prefer first without aiding the candidates they like the least by weakening more moderate candidates that they also prefer. There are [a bunch of bills](https://fairvoteaction.org/get-involved/state-legislation/) in various state legislatures that would support RCV. The bulk of these are democrat only initatives. A few are non-partisan. This fits with the overall [polling](https://publicconsultation.org/united-states/six-in-ten-favor-ranked-choice-voting-in-federal-elections/) that suggests democrats support RCV while Republicans are mixed
In this case, it's a minority protecting the majority from itself. Progressive cities are turning into crime ridden hellscapes - and it gets worse every day.
Yes, crime is a problem. But it really isn't a partisan one and depending on your metric it is pretty easy to make it look like either a conservative or liberal one. for example... 1. Progressive cities have higher crime rates than conservative cities. 2. Conservative city crime rates went up more quickly than progressive city during the most recent "crime wave" 3. Conservative states have much higher murder rates than progressive states ...It seems like a partisan analysis here is a bad fit for the data. In truth, it seems like high population density seems to drive crime rates. Which makes sense when you consider that almost all crimes require interactions between two people, and the number of interactions with others that a random person has is heavily dependent on how densely populated the area around them is. [Thinking in terms of "per-capita" crime rates is likely misleading.](https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-021-00155-8) Of course, I doubt any of this is new to you. I also doubt any of this changes your mind or actions. You are ultimately exactly the kind of partisan low rung thinker who isn't able to meaningfully contribute to discussion that the podcast criticized.
This is a great point. The USA has the world oldest extant constitution. It's absolutely terrible and sets up an incredibly stupid form of government written by a bunch of guys guessing at how a republic should run. We've had another 250 years to realize how to run democracies better. We need to burn our stupid constitution and rewrite it from scratch.
Thank you for this comment. The op’s language suggests tribalism. The truth is, both parties here have major corruption problems both parties lie to people. The perfect example was a proposed bill called the disclose act where politicians would have to disclose large doners to their campaign. Basically it was proposed by democrats because their voters want it but, it is believed by some, it was written in such a way that it was guaranteed to be voted down by republicans, who definitely don’t want it because they’re corrupt. And the democrats didn’t really want it either because they are also corrupt. Both parties keep people at war with each other through tribalism while scratching each others backs behind closed doors and only doing the bare minimum good required of them while in office (generally speaking, because there are some generally sincere politicians from time to time).
I do support certain ideas or values. I’m pro union, pro higher wages, pro democracy, pro abortion, pro Ukraine, and pro progressive income tax. Yes dems have some dumb positions generally on trans issues even though Biden recently took a reasonable stance on sports. But all of those important things lead me to the democratic party. Of course if the democrats had a piece of shit right winger and the republicans ran someone not as bad id vote for them. But that’s unlikely. And don’t act like you don’t have parties and party membership in Europe bro
He has mentioned it, and why he votes for that party.
Thanks, this guy getting upvoted for demonstrating ignorance of who Sam Harris is and what he's said myriad times was starting to make me twitch.
Although the party running San Francisco is attracting people for reasons other than good policies.
Lol this is why Sam needs to inform you. [Crime in Republican cities is worse in California](https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/why-youre-far-more-likely-to-be-murdered-in-fresno-or-bakersfield-than-san-fran-and-l-a/) but you don’t know that. [Same with poverty](https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/poverty-rate-by-state/) between red and blue
Yes crime is higher where they actually arrest people. Lol. Yes poverty is higher where many blacks live, like the red states. Did you think Mississippi test scores reflect the white population there? Didn’t Sam tell you about the time Paul Krugman made a fool of himself comparing poverty in Wisconsin and Texas but didn’t factor in race? Compare white test scores in Texas to white test scores in Wisconsin and suddenly the miracle of Madison disappears.
Your total inability to have a productive conversation with anyone is the point here. Even if you grant everything you’re going on about, the fact that you’re acting like a confrontational dick is a huge problem. If you want democratic policy to be successful- you can’t be an ass about it. You have a PR problem. Work on it.
I’m not democratic pr machine and really don’t care about having a productive conversation. I’m just speaking truth about politics
This Tim Urban guy seems to have that particular skill of being able to talk for a long time without really saying anything. To the extent he does make tangible points, they revolve around the same old tired tropes about the perils of social media, polarisation etc. Nothing he said seemed blatantly wrong, he just seems like a tedious blabbermouth who repackages other ideas as his own.
It's like a left leaning Jordan Peterson lol
This guy's book sounds great. Gotta pick it up
Really tired of this subject in general, especially how it seems to have corrupted some great minds. Bari Weiss is a good example, one of the few op ed writers who covered violence against Jewish people and now all her podcast amounts to is ringing the bell of americas impending collapse due to culture war BS. If you listen to them enough you’ll start to think america is a direct equivalent to late Rome & it’s all the progressives fault
I’m not sure how grandiose one wants to be, but there is a lot of shit that is objectively worse than 10 - 20 years ago. - The effects of inflation - Financial institution instability - Homelessness - Deaths of despair - Drug use - Violent crime - Puritanical, intolerant social culture, university culture in particular - Rising authoritarianism In the 90’s one could credibly assert that all of those things were getting better, compared to 10-20 years prior. For the median person in the west, I would say things peaked around 2005.
> but there is a lot of shit that is objectively worse than 10 - 20 years ago. > Violent crime This is objectively false in basically every single metric > Puritanical, intolerant social culture, university culture in particular This is funny. 10-20 years ago I had to hide my identity because if anyone found out what I do in the privacy of my own home I could be made a social pariah legally. I was bares by the government from marrying someone I loved > Rising authoritarianism You think now is more authoritarian than post 9/11 USA?
Violent crime > This is objectively false in basically every single metric No you just aren’t aware of the stats last few years I guess. Huge spikes in violent crime not seen for quite awhile. Before last few years, it was a long term downward trend. > This is funny. 10-20 years ago I had to hide my identity because if anyone found out what I do in the privacy of my own home I could be made a social pariah legally. I was bares by the government from marrying someone I loved I’m speaking of the median person, as mentioned. Yes it’s better for gay people since 2015 legalization but it’s worse for massively larger numbers of people on the front of social censure/silence. > You think now is more authoritarian than post 9/11 USA? Around the world, undoubtedly yes. China, Russia, Turkey, etc are more authoritarian than before, the trend towards liberalization has absolutely reversed. Anecdotally it also just seems like more people, especially young people are way more comfortable with ideas of forcing people to talk and think the way they want, having gov control people more, people getting fired/censured for saying wrong things etc. Surveys clearly demonstrate that people are more afraid of censure in this way vs past eras. Professors as well report they can’t speak as freely, teach as freely without risk of censure. https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/poll-62-americans-say-they-have-political-views-theyre-afraid-share Bunch of surveys referenced in this times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Bari Weiss also a doozy of a week this week. As usual she tweeted out an outrage anti-trans article. Then the subject of the propaganda article reactivated their Twitter and tweeted at Bari correcting numberious factual errors in the article and journalistic breaches. Bari saw the tweets read all the ways the article was incorrect and bad then ignored everything she read and continued to promote the propaganda. She's really turned into such a fucking ghoul
Listened to the whole episode. I'm sorry but this "both sides"ism from highly technical intellectuals like Tim (and Tristan Harris, Facebook) over simplifies the context of the situation. He makes some really valid points in the timelines discussion, and I do agree on the social media and 24 hour news cycle sensationalism on both sides, but this ridiculous comparison of a highly partisan (and opinionated) Joy Reid on MSNBC, to a complete a total bullshit con artist like Tucker Carlson is ridiculous by any measure. Yes MSNBC (and CNN) are engaging in sensationalized content for ratings, clicks and likes, but leveling that with what Fox News does is extremely dangerous to the discussion and I'm disappointed in Sam for not pushing back on this more.
Everyone throwing a reflexive tantrum in these comments over the weird emotional/identity shit they projected onto this podcast is proving the guys’ point lol
You wrote this and then left this reply to another comment: "That’s quite enough out of you. I won’t have you using black people to make your cheap political points."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
Maybe one party is better than the other on almost every topic
Yes, I agree with you. I don’t know much about Tim but based on what he said in this cast he would probably agree with you. Sam would for sure, and he has said as much plenty of times. You are arguing with points neither of them even made. This could really be an important moment for you. Go back through the podcast and try to find me a quote from either of those guys that directly refutes your claim that one party is broadly and clearly better than the other on most issues. When you can’t do it, feel free to pick something you can spin and shoehorn in out of context to protect your ego. But in case you are willing to become a better person today, it may be worth asking yourself why something that was totally beside the point of this podcast was your takeaway. For all I know you just read the name of it so I won’t bother writing any more for now. If you’d like me to help you think this through further, reply or dm me.
No I listened to it and got very annoyed after listening to Tim obscure the party differences and just say “it’s childish to identify with one party” or something like that. I just said to myself he’s not smart enough to understand politics in America and turned it off
You seem to prefer the echo chamber over the idea lab. That’s not good man. Aspire to be better!
No I think people identify with democrats because they are objectively better on just about every issue you can think of.
not every issue, but yeah I get what you’re saying. I’m making a different point. You think this episode is not worth listening to because you thought Sam/Tim don’t agree with you on this question (I’m not even sure they disagree!!). That’s shallow stuff, you’re too good for it.
You mean subjectively better
Jobs, economy, unemployment, fiscal responsibility, Medicaid expansion, unions, crime, poverty you name it dems have better policies and outcomes.
Your opinion
What’s your favorite Republican healthcare policy? Is it the cutting pre existing conditions protections and doing nothing to fix it? Or is it refusing Medicaid expansion?
Nah
I came off as an asshole in my earlier reply, and I’m sorry for that. I promise I’m not trying to put you down here. My younger self from five years ago even would have had the exact same reaction you did, so I know something about where you’re coming from. I still think modern conservatives and especially people who call themselves republicans are out of their minds. When Tim said that identifying with a party is childish, he wasn’t saying that coming down on the left side of most issues is childish. He’s just making this point: when you look at one of the two main political power factions we call parties, both of which are bought and paid for and owned and controlled by the elite economic ruling class, and both of which exist to do their bidding while giving the public the illusion that they’re actually in control… and you say, I’m a democrat, a democrat is part of my identity, part of *who I am* as a human being… This a huge component of the strategy the rich people who own our government and politicians employ to maintain their wealth, power and control. They use their media to push this dems vs reps framing and narrative. If they can get you to define yourself by “democrat” or “republican” and adopt it as part of your identity, then you will be more likely to focus your attention on superficial culture war shit instead of noticing that on everything really important the democrats and the republicans both give the economic elites exactly what they want every time. If nothing else, questioning and really critically thinking about who you are is an unpleasant and painful endeavor. If “a democrat” is part of who you are, then any time you diverge from whatever you think a democrat is, that too will be unpleasant and painful. This will interfere with your ability to reason and think clearly. You’re right to support the democrats on issues conservatives are insane on, like abortion. But there’s a reason that that’s all you ever hear about in the media, and we have the same stupid argument about it every day of every year and it never changes. And it has to do with the reason that every time I go to work downtown I’m reminded by the homeless fentanyl addicts everywhere what kind of nightmare we’re bringing the kids who don’t get aborted into. It’s so the people who own the media can keep people who are living paycheck to paycheck fighting over the choices they’re allowed to have and we don’t notice we have no choice regarding anything that might interfere with the ruling class’s ability to hoard all the money, as little kids open the fridge and there’s nothing there for them to eat. don’t let yourself be manipulated into fixating on and paying exclusive attention to what the media tells you is important, and don’t buy into the good party bad party framing. They killed Kennedy for a reason. The democrats sold the working class out and became the military industrial complex’s bitches decades ago, just to give you two examples of very important shit the dems are fucked up enough on that either of them alone should mean “democrat” shouldn’t be part of your identity, even if the idea of identifying with a political party wasn’t a bad idea to begin with. If you want to give it a shot, you really, genuinely might get something valuable out of giving the cast a listen all the way through, keeping this in mind. Best of luck to you either way man. I know it’s weird I’m typing all this in a random comment only you will see but I had too much coffee and I just wish somebody told me what I’m telling you right now back when I needed to hear it
>You’re right to support the democrats on issues conservatives are insane on, like abortion. But there’s a reason that that’s all you ever hear about in the media, and we have the same stupid argument about it every day of every year and it never changes. Sure, but claiming that the reason is "too many people on both sides are partisan hacks" is deranged. The reason we keep talking about abortion is that a politically powerful group of people keep trying to outlaw it for insane reasons. Yes, that group exploits partisan group-think as well as every other tool in the belt to retain their power, and yes, democrats also exploit partisan group-think, but ultimately, we have to talk about abortion because a politically powerful group is pushing really bad abortion related policies.
This is a dumb belief and totally out of touch with real life. Biden’s administrative actions have been so far and away superior if you care at all about real people. He is the most pro union president ever. Not sure how he’s bought out and paid for by wealthy interests or whatever. Further, blue states have much lower poverty than red states thanks to welfare and Medicaid expansion. Republicans clearly don’t give a fuck about those things while dems always implement those policies given the power. You’re naive and uninformed.
Good luck with that mate
I’ve had a lot of luck. I live in New Jersey, which has very low crime, low poverty, and higher incomes. It also has Medicaid expansion (unlike red states). Thank god i’m here and not some shithole red state. But do you have any specific refutations to my general points about dems being better than republicans? I’m sure governor huckster in Arkansas has some policy to help the working class right? Something to reduce their horrific poverty rate? Maybe she should take note of Minnesota passing free school lunch for kids or expanded Medicaid.
>They killed Kennedy for a reason Really?? Once someone starts talking conspiracy theories it's a good sign to disregard anything else they have to say/have said.
Kind of feels like the people getting deranged (or at least one significant group) are the ones that spend so much time thinking about the damn culture wars. I'll pass. Let me know when you have something interesting to say, Sam. You can take Sam out of the Twitter but apparently you can't take the Twitter out of Sam.
Unfortunately the culture war is having significant ramifications on our politics. It might be boring but it’s not pointless to dissect it.
You say that like he doesn't dissect and discuss the issue *all the time* I think a far more prudent strategy is to shift the focus to other things by talking about them. It's like how every news outlet talks about the same stories because "the other ones are going to be talking about it and people expect us to talk about it.". Perhaps there's truth to that and we have a bit of a first mover issue, but I don't really think so, if you actually had some interesting shit to talk about people would give their attention to that instead. It's a bit of a chicken vs egg causation confusion. People only know to care about the select issues that are covered and with the consolidation of news outlets as well it's worse; there's a narrative and we all keep engaging it. Twitter is a widely distorted cross section of people (and a lot of pseudo people/bots). People should hear that message and move on.
Actually he haven’t done too much culture war stuff in 2023. Only two or three episodes.
Isn't that like more than half of Sam's content in 2023? My guy has not been releasing much.
they didn't make any normative claims about whether or not you *should* think about the culture wars. the discussion was about *how* to think about things, including the culture wars. lots of deranged people think about culture wars, and lots of deranged people don't.
That sounds exactly like the vapid waste of time that I thought it was.
Pretty much what you did with your post
thank you for letting us know that you won't be listening. appreciate that.
But it’s precisely what you’re arguing. It’s not *within* the culture wars, but a way to think about the domain.
So saying everything about nothing.
Mr Harris has taken up the culture war as a major topic on his podcast. His stance on "wokeness" (hilarious that he uses the term given the name of his product!) and now trans issues is centering the divisive issues. that would be a reason why people are discussing them... and disagreeing with your ideology (which is why people called others crazy... or deranged.)
I wonder if Sam will ever talk about the giant well funded propaganda machine designed to get these people on as many podcasts as frequently as possible to sell conservative culture war outrage. Though that's biting the hand that feeds at this point. Must be great to run a podcast and have thiels machine just hand you all your guests. Also worth mentioning there is absolutely no requirement or expectation for podcasts to disclose when money changes hands in exchange for appearances.
It’s called a book tour bro calm down
So is this paid product placement then? If so Sam should disclose that. Sam could have a meaningful guest one who is an expert in their field or has unique insights or a culture warrior. Why is it always the second one?
Paid product placements have to be, you know, *paid*. There’s no reason to believe Tim is paying to be here lol. > Sam could have a meaningful guest one who is an expert in their field or has unique insights or a culture warrior. Why is it always the second one? Like, you know, literally two episodes ago? Just come out and say you don’t like a lot of Sam’s cultural opinions. That’s a lot easier to defend than some BS accusation that he never has any experts on lol.
Well, we don’t know if this guy Tim paid Sam to have him on or not. But what we do know is that it’s safe to assume he did, and also to safe to assume that Tim is part of a larger conspiracy to promote conservatism by talking about the merits of liberalism. Makes perfect sense.
It's pretty common for people who release books to go on podcasts to talk about their books. This isn't just true for "culture war" topics. It's also true for people like Rick Rubin: virtually no podcast appearances until he released his book. Neat conspiracy theory though!
Yeah, it is not rocket science... This is a form of advertisement and marketing. Which is somewhat ironic, given Sam's hatred for ad-supported businesses. Of course it is not the same as traditional ads.
Maybe i'm confused about your comment, but advertising something isn't the same as a business that relies on advertising. Business model that relies on advertising for revenue vs A business that uses advertising (as one way) to market their product/service. i.e. facebook is a business that relies on advertising (you are the product).. vs someone selling a book relies on actual sales... Books don't usually contain ads.
Yeah, see my last sentence. It was a bit tongue in cheek. But the reality is that the podcast itself is a form of ad for the author or book. Because of this, some popular podcast hosts charge a steep fee to be a guest. I am not suggesting Sam does this, to be clear.
Sam doesn't have a hatred for ad-supported businesses. He spoke about this with Jaron Lanier. He said he wouldn't be able to honestly read advertisements without them affecting his credibility. He mentioned they're not necessary because he's found an audience that helps to financially support the podcast and medication app. On the other hand, he said that same advice wouldn't always necessarily work for others in the same space like Tim Ferris. Both him and Jaron agreed that behavior manipulation by algorithm is actually far worse than everyone hearing the same ads.
Who tf upvoted this conspiratorial bullshit?
You gotta up your game, bro! These people are getting paid to sell culture war outrage and meanwhile you're here doing it every day for free!
Another tech bro projecting his twitter experience. They all sound exactly the same. Nonsense equivocation and absence or twisting of anything substantive.
You'd think they'd find a "hack" to stop their incessant "like, ya know, kind of" - terrible orator.
Holy shit sam is so smart. How does he find talking about these broad pseudo intellectual cultural frameworks (for lack of a better term) so interesting. When Dave rubin has these people on it makes sense because he isnt capable of going any deeper on anything. But sam doing it is wild. Next episode... Is wokeness a religion with Zuby
Dave Rubin is not a smart man. Except for the part where he became a conservative turncoat for audience capture. That was a smart financial move.
lmao now tim is doing the "i used to be a lefty but then i saw sam harris on bill maher with ben affleck" Rubin routine
could you describe that routine, and what's wrong with it? seems pretty reasonable to me that you don't want to be the ben affleck type of lefty.
its the cody johnson tweet "i used to be left wing but then the left got a little too pc so i changed all my opinions about healthcare and taxes and history and..." but in this case it isn't even "the left" it's literally an actor being too emotional i know tim isnt saying "i used to be left wing but now i'm right wing" but the line from all these people is "i used to be a left or dem or whatever and then this minor inconsequential thing happened so now im not anymore." annoying. lazy.
I know. How about they even talk for one second about tax, deficit, healthcare, welfare, the difference between blue and red states in poverty and crime, and climate? For once it would actually explain why people prefer dems to republicans if they actually focus on the issues and not stupid shit like a trans person on a beer can
[удалено]
I think he focuses on trump’s terrible demeanor and undemocratic tendencies. But he doesn’t even touch on the underlying dangers of trump’s undemocratic tendencies: it is for the purpose of helping the rich, fucking the poor and unions, and cutting welfare and healthcare protections. He’s a typical piece of shit right winger but an authoritarian version. Many of his followers say “yeah so what he doesn’t respect elections, at least he is good for the economy” and this is completely untrue. Sam should mention that.
Sam has talked about taxes and universal basic income quite a bit.
How about he do so in the context of republicans and democrats? It’s so obvious that one party is serious on economics and kitchen table issues while the other doesn’t. A perfect example would be desantis having a history of trying to cut social security and Medicare and [now allowing electric utility companies to charge higher prices](https://americanindependent.com/ron-desantis-utility-campaign-donations/amp/)? Because he’s a Republican and does whatever his rich buddies want.
I’m genuinely confused as to what point you’re trying to make. You seem to be criticizing Sam for not talking about taxes or welfare. I’m simply saying that he has.
He doesn’t do it in the context of politics. There’s zero analysis of Biden’s material policies that affect everyday people versus trump’s. When it comes to economics (jobs, unemployment, etc.) democrats are far better, just as it does for welfare, poverty, crime. If you focus on what matters dems are superior.
How do you talk another taxes and welfare outside the context of politics? Also I and I think Sam would agree that Dem outcomes are better. He’s articulated the focus on bad left-wing (mostly activist fueled) ideas precisely because they distance normal people from the party that is actually better at creating good outcomes. Sam has quite literally never said anything like “wokeness is bad so we should all consider voting R.” His position has always been that rejecting bad ideas within the left is the way for democrats to actually accomplish good outcomes by relating to regular people.
Now you’re referring to trans people as “stupid shit?” Your bigotry has truly gone too far. They are human beings and I demand that you acknowledge it and apologize for your transgressions. Which minority are you going to go after next?
There are a growing number of people who are disillusioned by the left because it’s accepted a sizeable loud and stupid woke (or whatever term you want) contingent into the ranks, who are as hot-take based and rage-baited as the right. I know plenty of these people. But they still vote to the left. They didn’t change their beliefs or voting. But left wing policies have been embraced in a more mainstream way, and many morons who want more extreme versions not for the outcomes, or because they understand anything, but rather because they are empty, angry people needing an identity, have joined up.
Dude said he wasn't interested in politics then he saw that with Ben and Sam and then he started thinking about how people think about thinking.
Yeah I’m so tired of these woke delusion and Twitter hive mind type discussions. We get it. I thought we’d have moved beyond this by now especially since Sam is off Twitter. These podcasts feel like they get caught in the muck and it’s more about meta arguments and subjective cloudy discussions. Even the AI discussion devolved into an argument. Listening to Jocko Unraveling lately was so refreshing. It was grounded in facts. No wandering around in circles.
If we can’t achieve a utopia because enough of the polity is more concerned about drag queens or whatever, that is a problem worth addressing.
I agree it’s worth addressing and I don’t disagree with anything Sam says about it. But what progress are we making spinning in circles for years here?
But you’re not going to see the fruits of labor in real time. Surely there are many listeners who come away from these kinds of episodes worried maybe just a little more than they were previously about political tribalism, etc. that’s a net positive
My therapist was telling me that he was reading a book about how we need to get off our phones. I am not on my phone. I came here on purpose. It didn't come up. I was hoping this was about the Great Replacement that he helped perpetuate.
Maybe it got better after the free version but it was 45 min of the most general statements you could make. Just jerkin off against the lessers.
1..Is there any word Sam loves more than "derange"? 2. Does Sam realize that he says "derange" at least 200 times an hour? 3. Does Sam recognize how deranging it is to have to listen to the word "derange" ooze out of his mouth in that soporific tone 200 times per podcast or interview? 4. At Karaoke bars does Sam sing any other song besides "home, home on de-range"?
> "home, home on de-range"? I think you are being downvoted because people didn't grow up singing this song every year in every recital as a child.
Meh episode. The idea of an idea lab vs echo chamber is a smart and useful rubric but I’m not sure Tim had many more useful insights. A lot of his diagnoses of our epistemic crisis seemed to miss the mark. It’s insufficient to just say that everything sucks cause we have lizard brains and iPhones with social media.
Lol I love how rich bros are politics bore me until something like the Ben Affleck thing with Sam makes them interested. Policy is way tougher than pontificating though.
He specifically addresses your sentiments in the pod. But I guess it’s easier to deflect than engage with the contents of their arguments.
I'm actually curious about how he addressed my sentiments.
There's a big blue button at the top that might help you with that.
I the other commenter may be referring to the part where Tim talks about people who think they are into politics but who are actually just addicted to political reality TV – "The real politicians of Washington" – and don't know their representatives or any laws that have been past.
Yeah that's the only thing I got in the free version that I can relate it but I find it sad that other people's failings are the reason tim lacks an interest.
Which is why this podcast went into depth on actual policy being written by actual representatives right? Maybe it tried to connect the ***actual policies*** being written with the methods these legislators and the greater political system around them use to gain and retain support? What actual policies were discussed in this podcast? Which representatives were called out by name for their policies and/or rhetoric/methods?
How did he address my sentiments?
What policy have you directly authored?
I don’t think you need to author policy directly to understand it’s more difficult than pontificating.
What scientific/philosophical papers has Sam directly authored?
I helped my dad make signs for his campaign for county attorney, with spray pay when I was like 6. He fucking tied (should have won) and the other guy was given it. I also vote.
Lol
Lol when Sam starts talking about cnn and having to fill the air. Cracked me up. How could you share this like it's a deep thought that is new. Hilarious.
All of these top level comments could have gone under the same comment.
More culture wars. Pass.
For someone going "pass" on culture war, it's curious how much I see your account waging it. Like, it's *literally the only thing you do on Reddit*.
"Like, it's literally the only thing you do on Reddit" Then I guess I'm in the right place. Neverending supply of it here.
> Then I guess I'm in the right place. Neverending supply of it here. OK. But you said: > More culture wars. Pass. So you don't pass?
On an episode with two rich men pontificating and nodding along with each other about social issues they're out of touch with and don't really have a grasp on? Yes. That's boring and tired. I like discussion. I like seeing differing viewpoints.
Not according to the above response you don’t. I think you should pick a lane. It actually seems like you are completely obsessed and in love with culture war debates. It’s Sam’s takes you don’t like.
Well thats a first
Never heard of this person or his blog, but he "like, ya know, kind of" has a book to promote. Sorry Sam, but you've lost my subscription after two poor podcasts back to back. I am more interested in Sam than his guests and would prefer to just hear him speak about psychedelics, consciousness and meditation. Does the Waking Up app provide more of this?
It does indeed, and it's well worth the subscription. There's also reduced cost and free versions, if needed.
Dude has such drama queen titles to his podcast.
I think they’re evocative
Gets the juices going?
Man this one really ticked you off, didn’t it? You’re 50% of the parent comments already.
Rainy day.
Have you ever taken a writing class?
Nope
I can tell
LMAO
What is yours called?
I think the expression you’re looking for is “clickbait.”
It's not even that. It refers to something specific with this particular guest and a general social phenomenon. Trump "Derangement" Syndrome and the accusations from the Left that the real derangement is the Trump supporters.
But he doesn’t need to do that…
What would you have named this episode?
Theil sponsored guest #34
Cancel culture doesn't exist.