/lit/ - Literature

Put your hand on the stove and tell me its not moral to take it off, faggot!

>>12251100
How are we defining morality here?

>He fell for the Sam Harris meme

>>12251069
>am I missing something?
No, Sam Harris is an actual retard. Watch his debate with Jordan Peterson (regardless of what you think of him) and compare the two. Peterson makes perfect sense, his arguments clear and lucid, while Harris consistently retreats to analogy and petty definitions. The "what is truth" argument is a trope of first-year university students not high-level discourse.

>>12251100
Ban assault stoves!

>>12251141
clearly, in that case, it is defined as not burning your hands on the stove. that's one piece of our morality

>>12251069
>Am I missing something here?
Nope, it's just a rehash of the same shitty utilitarianism, only he ignores any of the developments of utilitarianism.
>insults philosophers
>is philosophically stuck in the 1800s
Just your typical science-worshipping STEMfag

>>12251069
>Attempts to define 'well-being' as some vague, quantifiable state of the brain measurable by fMRI machines, which he logically believes is what morality is based upon
The logical conclusion of his ideas is that we have as much of the population as possible in an opiate induced coma, with a few volunteers ensuring their brain chemistry remains at the right levels

>>12251195
What's the problem with that?

From what I remember, the first 15 minutes of this do a great job of summing up why this book is so shitty.

And no, you're not missing anything

>>12251198
Nothing whatsoever. It would objectively suck less than allowing people to put their hands on a stove

>>12251203
Putting you hand on the stove is so dangerous it may be ethical to kill people for doing it.

>>12251069
>Sam Harris
Throw it in the trash mate

>>12251200
>first 15 minutes of this
Of what?

>>12251200
>>12251241

Oh shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TR5N1XyUco&t=700s

>>12251270
Thx babe

Sam Harris is 20 IQ points above anybody in this thread.

>>12251371
Sam Harris' IQ is 20 points above his audience's average, which is 80.

>>12251069
Anyone who doesn't put the spiritual and philosophical advancement along side science and material life in coherence is a brainlet.

One of the biggest problems of our society is. There is no balance. We forgot how to be humans. Bashing on religion is the most retarded thing anyone can do.

He’s just trying to provide a morality based on rationalism instead of tribalism which is something I can appreciate but people smarter than him have tried for a long time.

It won’t work for a plethora of reasons but In the grand scheme of things I think he’s a positive force in the world and seems to criticize religion in the most respectful way. You can easily ignore his more excessive aspects like meditation and spiritual non-belief.

>>12251100
>it's morally wrong to put your hand on the stove.

No it is objectively wrong to put your hand on the stove. You put your pan to cook food not your hand. Morality has nothing to do with that.

>>12251155
I watched it and found them both fascinating and at times bringing Forth great ideas/arguments. I think you might be making a mistake in thinking that either was trying to “win” which is kind of a meme. It’s about understanding someone else’s views more deeply, atleast goid debating is one method of such things. Did you view their second meeting? Because many loose ends were tied up. It’s simple enough to say that Harris isn’t religious and Peterson is spiritual. Sam even conceded that religious archetypes have been valuable to society.

>>12251394
I agree with you that society is missing a serious element which in the past was religious and we’re being pushed to nihilism. I envy the religious. But I don’t know how to reconcile science and religion and have never met people that can.

>>12251428
I didn't mean about "winning" the argument, just answering direct questions. For example from their second meeting -- timecode 1:14:40.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEf6X-FueMo&t=6220s

Peterson: (you claim) there's a transcendent rationality we can all aspire to... what is it?
Harris: *babbles incoherently for ten minutes*

>>12251394
>There is no balance.
Harris is not a moral philosopher and in the book talks out of his ass a lot.

This is like saying "We need more lib arts majors to talk about astrophysics there is no balance"

Also, vid related https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxalrwPNkNI&t=118s

>>12251069
>that cover

>New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith
>How ____ can _____
>NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
>that long-ass quote at the top

"Don't judge books by their cover" is bullshit, this shit does look retarded.

Harris is just a 50 year old actual boomer. The whole generation was lost to positivism and atheistic horseshit.

>>12251435
Eastern Orthodox Christians aka Greek Christianity back in Byzantium combined astrology and geometrical philosophy along side their advancement. But it is true that the society in todays age, itself doesn't care to advance spiritually.

In the end, we all live in a under-graded society where all of our needs are being taken care of. Literally meat bags.

>>12251446
I see exactly what you mean and agree but you must admit Peterson is equally frustrating when trying to articulate his feelings about archetypes and the cultural value of religion. I found him just as obtuse as Harris in this regard. I think we can just see both of their flaws clearly, Harris’s being that we can’t actually provide a morality based on rationalism for all of society and Peterson’s being that we can no longer provide a morality based on religion no matter how abstract and true we find some of that wisdom through time. We’re living in a paradigm shift and it’s put us in a precarious position.

>>12251471
I think if our advancements had come slower religion and society could adapt like it always has. But yeah like you said, we’re just meat bags now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxalrwPNkNI
yikes

>>12251239
>uses the words "trash" and "mate" together

is this the fabled mongrel, said to unify the UK and amerikkka?

>>12251488
Yes, Peterson can be frustrating. I have a lot of issues with him too.

>>12251520
>Cuck Philosophy
Yikesy!!

>>12251453
I haven't read the book, I just thought of giving my opinion on what OP stated that the book is about. When we research something we need to step back and actually thing what this is. What it means, how it helps mankind. This is where religion comes in.

We "invented" time, gravity, god particles, Turing engines and a fuck tone of things yet we haven't actually stepped back to fully understand them. We just say THEORETICALLY and we continue onwards. This is why se still have flat earthers. We advance way too fast

No, it's insanely retarded and insulting to moral philosophy. It can be said at points to contain true statements if they're interpreted charitably, but if they're interpreted as Sam Harris meant them they're not true.
It's not the reduction of morality to physical processes that's insulting - the jump from empirical and therefore contingent observations to moral claims (which should be universal and necessary) indicates lack of reflection on epistemology, but that's not where the evil of Sam Harris' thought really lies. Instead, it's the reduction of morality to pleasure and satisfaction. By doing that, one annihilates the thought of unconditional value which the mind recognizes all the time in life without having to make any calculations. The consequence is that any life without the pleasure and avoidance of pain that Harris' morality is based on is apparently one without value, or which had less value than the life of a randomly fortunate person.
It takes a perverse type of pseud to take pleasure in doing this, trying to pass it off as if he's being rational when ignoring centuries of people who have thought about epistemology before him, because apparently he thinks epistemology takes a back seat to neuroscience. That only circular reasoning can justify such a position is not the least of the faultiness of such an approach.
Philosophers generally approach other inquiries with respect - it is called love of wisdom, after all. If they make a hasty judgement about them, they normally do so out of ignorance and over-confidence, but they typically do not mean to imply it isn't worth studying. But the credentialed scientists who feel the need to undervalue other inquiries about which they are demonstrably ignorant are first-hand proof that being smart about one field doesn't make you a good person, or understand anything important in practical life.

>>12251539
an Australian?

>>12251195
I would unironically take that. Chronic back pain and the usual depression/autism/anxiety have made me very bitter. I shit on those healthy fags that proclaim suffering is good

>>12251069
>>Insults philosophers and the field of philosophy by calling it 'boring'
Well, he's not wrong about that one.

>>12251069
The book is insanely retarded.

>>12251562
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with the book or Harris.

It would be different if Harris had any expertise in Moral Philosophy. However, his inexperience with the subject & field mean that he cannot "step back" or abstract away from philosophical nuance if he doesn't even know what he's stepping away from.

>>12251371
that leaves him in the 60-80 range

>>12251069
Moral objectivity is an impossibility so yes, it's retarded.

>>12251932
The thing is, how retards like him get their books published? I'd rather read a grimoire and practice it rather than read this technocratic or whatever this pile of shit is.

>>12251069
>Is this book as insanely retarded as it appears to be
Yes. It absolutely is. He builds an insanely flawed argument about ethics, gets relentlessly criticized for it, and then proceeds to dismiss the study of ethics as "boring" as a defensive mechanism. This is probably to avoid recognizing that all of his ideas have been thought about and duly refuted in the past. You'd think, that as a philosophy major from STANFORD, he would have known about all of this. But he's a dummy.

Sam Harris is a posturing charlatan who does everything he can to seem like a logic-chopping powerhouse intellectual to mildly educated secularists, who don't know any better. I'm surprised that he started taking intellectually-controversial stances such as race realism. I'd figure that that'd be too risky for his image as the face of "reason".

>>12251931
Sam Harris has a BA in philosophy from Stanford University. He should have enough expertise to recognize what kinds of issues he's dealing with, like Hume's guillotine, when he tries to derive a science of morality from first principles. Instead, you get posturing nonsense like this:
>Many of my critics fault me for not engaging more directly with the academic literature on moral philosophy ... [but] I am convinced that every appearance of terms like ‘metaethics,’ ‘deontology,’ ‘noncognitivism,’ ‘antirealism,’ ‘emotivism,’ etc. directly increases the amount of boredom in the universe.
Anybody who takes this charlatan seriously for dodging criticism in such an intellectually dishonest way is a fucking retard.

>>12252069
>The thing is, how retards like him get their books published?
free market capitalism

>>12251100
based

>>12251435
Read Pensées

Sam Harris is a man who loves to sniff his own farts.

>>12251100
Fuck you bitch i'll burn my hand if i want to

>>12251520
based

>>12253100
Could you give me a quick overview of this author? I’m interested but my list is so long I just want to hear a bit more,

>>12251069

There's a reason why he's called Scam Harris.

>>12252145
>he started taking intellectually-controversial stances such as race realism
He didn't do that, he pussied out and said that it wasn't "interesting"

>>12252069
He was born into money.

>>12251568
God damn, some sense in lit.

>>12251548
The critique Cuck Philosophy made of the book was solid. I'm sure his other stuff isn't great based on his passive-aggresive name, but take the video on its own. Look at the pathetic brainlets in the comments attempting to defend this shit.

>>12254207
>said that it wasn't "interesting"
>doesn't look into something with profound implications because it's not "interesting"
What the fuck? You weren't exaggerating. His fans are even more retarded than he is.
https://amp-reddit-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/7wikbf/putting_race_realism_to_bed_in_rsamharris/?amp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQGCAEoAVgB#
How the fuck is this level of retardation even possible?

>>12251435
Read Plantinga

>>12251195
That's small time. The logical conclusion is that as much of the universe as possible should be filled by brains in vats maintained by machines in which they are constantly kept in a non-sentient state in which they never think or experience anything but a euphoria that corresponds to the state of well-being.

More brains could be produced by bioengineered brainless breeders constantly expanding the amount of well-being.

>>12256220
Truly this is morally visionary.
Sounds like some sci-fi villain race who just want to convert all matter into 'wellbeing experiencing machines' and don't understand why the heroes oppose them.

>>12251155
>Peterson makes perfect sense

>>12251100
It's not wrong to do that. What if my brain waves make me like it?

>>12251415
What if I feel like tasting my hand?

>>12251069

>>12251371
I'm 150 therefore you're wrong.

>>12251155
>Peterson makes perfect sense, his arguments clear and lucid

Sam has nothing to do with literature yet he lives in /lit/'s head rent free.

>>12251435
Clearly 'science' has nothing to do with what you feel and gnostic ism has everything to do with it.

>>12251069
I've read it, and from what I remember, no. Your summary is fair and accurate, and the book is stupid.

>>12251456
And, yet, they're still better than you.

Sam Harris, especially when compared to Peterson, is nothing but a little man, worthless and only paid attention by similar worthless people. There is no justifying this guy having fans if not for the feeble-minded.

>>12258480
epic burn, how will he ever recover?

>>12258601
Doesn't matter, incel trash.

>>12258611
seething

>>12251640
>t. Last Man

>>12258615
How, little man?

Scam Harris is only popular because he rode that massive pseud wave in publishing called new atheism. I must admit I love when he goes after Islamic apologists, but that's pretty much low hanging fruit. Chunk Yogurt of TYT probably has an IQ of 115, so when 135 IQ Sam dances circles around him verbally its fun popcorn stuff but he isn't a serious thinker.

>>12255929
wtf I love reddit now

>>12258713
heh, tell that to your stove

>>12256892
Then you should've been aborted

>>12258713
>Scam Harris
Wow, that's pretty good. I'm surprised this is the first time I've seen that.

>>12251069
I think the charitable interpretation of his argument is this:

1. "Ethical questions" are best understood as pragmatic questions of determining preferable behaviors.

2. Despite philosophers' attempts to construct metaphysical principals, the actual motivation determining behavior is our well-being.

3. Well-being can be studied empirically in a physicalist framework.

His position as I understand it is equivalent to a kind of pragmatic nihilism--there are no moral facts in the sense meant by philosophers, but there are psychological facts about our preferences, and we can understand those facts through science and systematize an "ethics" in the sense of codifying the kinds of behaviors we will prefer to perform and prefer to enforce on a society level.

>>12251155
Peterson makes himself look stupid as well, neither one of them come out of that debate looking good.

>>12251155
Sam is low IQ, but he's not a bullshitter. He wants Jordan Peterson's philosophy in simple terms and JP's inability to reduce it to that, his refusal to answer Sam's simple questions reveal him for the fraud he is. Jordan Peterson spent the whole debate posing like a smug overconfident faggot and let his fanbois cheering validate his shitty one liners and open ended comments as intellectual.

If there was ever anything to Jordan Peterson the fame has made him lose sight of it.

>>12259078
>pragmatic-nihilist
Then why does he constantly pretend that he's not? Hasn't he claimed to not be a nihilist (genuinely asking)? He must just be a disingenuous asshole.
>He just studies what is and gives an ought framework based around what he defines as 'well-being' (not being sad and just being happy or something based around fMRI scans)
He's an 1800s utilitarian, and he hopefully wouldn't actually believe that any of his oughts should be implemented if he were to actually comprehend their logical implications. There are an infinite amount of ways you can reduce his argument to seemingly-evil insanity.
>No more grievance over death of those you love to preserve your 'well-being'
>Genetically engineer human-like organisms to be in constant states of however you define 'well-being' and put them into mass pleasure-domes
>'Brave New World'-esque society based around drugs
If Sam wishes to remain consistent with what he posits, he must accept these things as preferable to him. If he does, which I'm sure he doesn't, he's a piece of shit.

If he were to say something along the lines of, "I'm just using this as a hueristic, man. Stop taking it so serious, bro." then it's even worse, because he spends the entirety of the book insulting moral philosophies, hand-waiving things away like a fucking child, and pretending that he found some solution to the conundrum of morality and nihilism. You don't like discussion on the meta, deontology, or moral philophy of any sort? Cool. Now fuck off, you psued.

Here's another idea for Sam, and I unironically do not think he considered this. You don't need fucking space-age technology to tell if somebody is doing well. You don't need a fucking brain scan to tell that somebody is sad, depressed, angry, or not doing well. We've been able to tell for millions of years, and fixing it isn't always the right path. People need to feel grievance, anger, pain, terror, and depression. What does this retard want? I'm so fucking confused.

>>12259963
>What does this retard want? I'm so fucking confused.
Do you know anything about kikes? All of these jews on the fake, jewish media-generated "dark web" are running cover for their tribe. Stop taking their ideas at face value and start educating yourself on the jewish problem and things will start making sense.

>this thread

holy cringola

>>12259983
I remember that, during a debate between him and JBP, he implied there would be no war between Palestine and Israel if belief in God disappeared overnight. He's also an open Zionist. The crowd even clapped to the statement. We live in clown-world.

>>12260043
Yes. Jews have a dual morality, where they promote one thing for the goyim and the opposite for themselves, while seemingly having no concept of the inherent contradiction. The hyper atheism as ideology that peaked in the late 90s and is still sadly dragged on through kikes like Harris is a great representation of that, and I'm not surprised this jew turned on a dime when it came to his own tribe's religiosity, as you say. Same thing with jews attacking white nationalism while genociding Palestinians and taking their land to expand their own ethnostate. They have no principles and don't actually think in the universalist terms they hold the goyim to; right and wrong centers solely around whatever happens to be good for jews and bad for nonjews. They're a very sick people.

>Thinks encryption should be illegal because otherwise the terrorists will win

>>12260146
so, jews are wrong for prioritizing themselves? you also claimed that jews have no principles then accuse them for their principles. pick one.

>>12260340
Jews can prioritize themselves in the country we gave them under the pretense that they would stop interfering in our nations culture and politics. They did not abide by the deal so now we have to remove them yet again.

>>12258670
You must be a woman. Am I right?

>>12251069
I read this joke, all Sam is doing is taking Ayn Rand's accomplishment and attempting to reframe it under a socialist/determinist lens. Which is why it's so bad.

>>12251100
Read Bataille.

>>12260389
So more jews jewing on the back of jews.

*yawn *

>>12260389
>Ayn Rand's accomplishment

>>12261598

>>12251069
4chan, the website where you actually have to let people know that you're being serious...