The Mysterious Case of Sam Harris 🧵
A big reason pulling me into this whole debate around the pandemic is being baffled by behaviors of people like Sam. Having had high esteem for him, it was important to me to "unpack" our disagreement, to make sure I haven't lost my mind.
A big reason pulling me into this whole debate around the pandemic is being baffled by behaviors of people like Sam. Having had high esteem for him, it was important to me to "unpack" our disagreement, to make sure I haven't lost my mind.
I started by doing a comment thread on his podcast with Eric Topol, which, as you will discover, left me deeply unsatisfied.
https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1418820817161363456?s=20
That was, it turns out, a bad start, as he ended up calling me out in his AMA 17, never having spoken to me before and ended up completely straw-manning my argument. Completely out of character for the Sam Harris of old.
https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg/status/1424468199173541893?s=20
The joke of course, is that with Sam attempting to talk about respecting the experts, he attempted to make a point about UI/UX and information systems to someone who has a PhD in the subject of information systems specifically, and ~25 years experience building them. 😜
I may or may not have made the odd batman joke, but when I recovered my composure, I attempted to write a thread that, had Sam read it, had a chance of getting at the heart of our disagreement:
https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1424886067572862976
Naturally, I heard nothing. Then Sam Harris released AMA 18, and, well, it was pretty mindblowing, in how poorly reasoned it was. I couldn't even bring myself to do a proper thread on it, but we did cobble something together:
https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1441090867901591559
For a while, however, I had been thinking along a parallel track. My sense with Sam is that his anxiety around illness is through the roof:
https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg/status/1238558322401263617?s=20
The parasite stress hypothesis makes certain uncomfortable predictions about our "behavioral immune system" and how it may affect our reasoning:
https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1419966999963209732?s=20
My conclusion, having dug into this as much as I could bear, is that Sam's ability to reason is strongest where his fight/flight response is not active. When he's threatened, he regresses to a level that is not more sophisticated than your average Joe.
https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1444699273866534915?s=20
While I mostly stay away from Sam Harris commentary these days, I still do crack the occasional joke at his expense, having mostly lost interest in his thought process.
https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1444349745695113218?s=20
So I think until Sam finds his way back to reason, if ever, his stature among anyone who can think their way out of a paper bag will continue to be diminished.
https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1448145439392350213?s=20
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