Best products from r/samharris

>So AEI and Free Press both told Charles Murray to find certain things and then they published it and you think he doesn't believe these things?

Explicitly? Maybe not but that's not how conflicts of interest generally work. The point is that if Murray had a change of heart or found evidence that contradicted Hoya beliefs, he'd have to consider whether to publish it because it would mean losing out on that funding.

>What about his co author? Are you accusing Harvard of pushing for Hernstein to fabricate the disparity of IQs between the races? This claim is absolutely bizarre.

Let's just accept for the sake of argument that Herrnstein had no conflict of interest. So what?

How does that change Murray being funded by a group that wants a specific conclusion? Are you telling me that it's not a conflict of interest for creationist biologists to be funded by the Discovery Institute, or for Andrew Wakefield to be funded by a pharmaceutical group that wanted to sell a new kind of vaccine?

>You realize that the difference in IQs among the races isn't actually a good thing for libertarians or conservatives? It's much harder to have an ideology that says pull yourself up by your bootstraps, when different races are either significantly less or more intelligent than each other. It makes it even worse if the difference is genetic, since that would be very hard to solve, granted the bell curve doesn't make the claim that the difference between the races is all genetic.

It helps the conservative positions because it means we can reject a lot of social policies like affirmative action.

>So we are still not sure what is causing the difference, but we will get closer to the answers as we progress in our abilities to collect better data.

As we collect more and more data it becomes even more clear that the genetic explanation can't explain what we see.

>I would say when someone is going to benefit by making the wrong decision/choice about something.

Like getting a steady paycheck for finding certain results?

>You haven't even come close to showing a conflict of interests with the authors of the Bell Curve. I think you should if you want to pursue this accusation any farther. I'd like some hard evidence that you have that shows Murray was explicitly set to benefit for putting the IQ and race stuff in his book. It seems to me it's made him worse off by making him a pariah to many and being slandered left and right.

Let's just be clear - you think if someone did research for the AEI and attempted to get it published, journals would not require those people to declare the AEI as a conflict of interest?

>I don't think you know what a conflict of interest is. It's not a conflict of interest if I work for an evolution think tank and write a book about evolution. Evolution is true, there is no conflict.

What's an evolution think tank?

If someone worked for a group which had in its aims to discover scientific truths and investigate the world wherever it leads us then no it wouldn't be a conflict of interest. But if someone were to study gender differences and they worked for a radical feminist think tank, that would be a conflict of interest because the nature of the organisation has a vested interest in certain outcomes.

I understand conflicts of interest very well, I've done research in the private sector funded by organisations hoping to find certain outcomes with their products. You have to be extremely careful in this setup as there are a million ways in which it can bias your research without you realising and you need to declare it outright because people need to be aware that it could be affecting your results.

>So if you disagree with someone who funded research you should refuse to use it? Should we have burned all the scientific and medical research done by the Nazis or should we have used it?

Who said we should refuse to use it?

It means we should be skeptical. If the only people who can find evidence of a genetic link are those funded by white supremacists hoping to find that black people are genetically inferior, then we have to question how unbiased their research is.

>He literally published a book about the issue in 1973. You would have known about that if you went down to his published works. I guess I should challenge you about your baseless claim about Herrnstein. Where did you find that information about him? He clearly had been looking at the subject for at least two decades before the publishing of the Bell Curve.

Why would you think publishing a book is relevant to what we're talking about?

Like I said, I'm a Herrnstein fan boy, I know what he's published. At most he published a couple of commentaries on intelligence research. Just look at his research history - did you not find it strange that there are hundreds of results about research with pigeons?

> he is open to looking at evidence from all sides of this issue

He's not though. Anyone on the other side he calls "fringe" and blinded by ideology. We're talking actual scientists here, not Ezra Klein.
> Many people don't accept IQ tests are a valid measure of intelligence. Do you?

In the opening to the Charles Murray podcast, Sam Harris came out with very strong statements how IQ is a rock solid measure of intelligence. I believe he said it's the most rock solid fact in all of neuroscience.

My opinion, if you care, is that it's probably a pretty good indicator but that some questions can be culturally biased if the question taker doesn't know certain terms referred to in the question.

> We could, as a policy, commit to egalitarian beliefs in human rights regardless of IQ, race, etc.

Well that's a nice utopia that I'd like to live in too. But that's not our current world. And Sam Harris has nothing but disdain for anyone trying to help bring that post-racial utopia into being.

> These are the policies Harris believes in as it is, anyway.

Charles Murray is a libertarian in the school of Nobel Prize winning economist (note: not a real Nobel Prize, but that aside) James Buchanan who was a racist that practiced racism in economic terms. When asked about the terrible effects his policies would have on black people, his reply was that he believed in "letting the chips fall where they may." He also said that "for Capitalism to thrive, democracy must be enchained."

Do you know who took it upon himself to put the ideas of James Buchanan into practice? Charles Koch, current money man of the Republican Party and Dave Rubin. If you'd like to know more on this subject, I suggest you pick up the following book from the library (before the libertarians get rid of them)

[Democracy in Chains] (https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Chains-History-Radical-Stealth/dp/1101980966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523309387&sr=8-1&keywords=democracy+in+chains+maclean+nancy)

Alternatively, here's an article from The Atlantic.

Yes, I listened to the podcast. It was good albeit, as Chris said, a bit harrowing.

The best book I have read on the psychology piece is Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. I highly recommend it. Fascinating and devastating in equal measure.

It's also definitely worth reading The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion as a backgrounder on moral psychology.

After reading these, I found that my sense of humans as uniquely rational and intelligent was pretty much entirely put to one side... Now I rather see us as apes with technology and pretensions of greatness...

> IDW

> engage in good faith discourse with intellectual humility, academic rigor and charitable attitudes towards others’ views

You mean this good faith discourse?

https://www.amazon.com/How-Debate-Leftists-Destroy-Them-ebook/dp/B00JRJQ7Z2/ref=nodl_

You mean these charitable attitudes?

https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/6blyyy/what_do_you_guys_think_about_dave_rubins_recent/?st=JSNIV0KT&sh=8d1760d7

I’m unsure why if you’re actually interested in the above you’d want to hitch your wagon to IDW.

They’re a fairly homogenous group who pontificate about subjects which, by virtue of their positions in life, are rarely exposed to the reality of their subject matter. They have easy conversations about difficult subjects amongst themselves. They’re an echo chamber in leather chairs.

The only thing new IDW has brought to the table is their unironic self-congratulatory way they have conversations about having conversations.

Sorry to shit on your thread. Maybe go down the Hitchens route and find a good debating club.

To those intrigued by the prosaic notions of awakening discussed in the podcast (e.g. - how one relates to the contents of mind having cultivated a deep practice) look no further than The Mind Illuminated. Given the assumption of Sam's crowd being rigorous and scientific, this book should have great appeal to many of you: it guides the practitioner through stages consisting of various exercises that progressively lead to powerful concentration. This is almost purely a technical manual with only brief quotes from suttas, and includes interludes that express the author's hypothesis of how meditation affects the brain's processes (he has a PHD in neuroscience).

This book is also good for those who have held a basic practice of following the breath and returning upon distraction for a long while, but feel lost having practiced just this for a period of time.

Finally, I strongly recommend buying the physical copy over the digital one, since the book consists of tables, diagrams, and images better suited to print.

I hope this will be of use to you all, as it's accelerated my own practice by leaps and bounds. If you apply yourself rigorously to this curriculum, you will see tremendous benefit within the course of a year (but obviously sooner too, given the skills you'll acquired as you go along).

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486053969&sr=8-1&keywords=the+mind+illuminated

1. Obviously not everything, but a lot of popular programming certainly adheres to those ideas and what not.
   
   
2. No, when did I say 'anyone slightly left of center'? You've just made that up yourself. The people I am talking about are almost entirely FAR leftists, so it's very much an extreme fringe -- albeit one that's very influential. I am right of center but know plenty of people who are left of center who mostly agree with me and find this stuff abhorrent, so you're just wrong about that.
   
   Also, none of this is my fabrication. There's a whole realm of analysis about it. Here's a great starting point for you: https://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Postmodernism-Skepticism-Socialism-Rousseau/dp/0983258406

I haven't read it yet, but Robert Wrights book [Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment] (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlightenment/dp/1439195455) might be right up your alley. He also appeared on the podcast #102 Is Buddhism True?

Sam's recommended reading list might be a good resource to sort through too. Good luck!

> Getting paid to find a certain conclusion isn't a conflict of interest?

So AEI and Free Press both told Charles Murray to find certain things and then they published it and you think he doesn't believe these things? What about his co author? Are you accusing Harvard of pushing for Hernstein to fabricate the disparity of IQs between the races? This claim is absolutely bizarre.

You realize that the difference in IQs among the races isn't actually a good thing for libertarians or conservatives? It's much harder to have an ideology that says pull yourself up by your bootstraps, when different races are either significantly less or more intelligent than each other. It makes it even worse if the difference is genetic, since that would be very hard to solve, granted the bell curve doesn't make the claim that the difference between the races is all genetic. So we are still not sure what is causing the difference, but we will get closer to the answers as we progress in our abilities to collect better data.

>Can you tell me how you're defining conflict of interest?

I would say when someone is going to benefit by making the wrong decision/choice about something. You haven't even come close to showing a conflict of interests with the authors of the Bell Curve. I think you should if you want to pursue this accusation any farther. I'd like some hard evidence that you have that shows Murray was explicitly set to benefit for putting the IQ and race stuff in his book. It seems to me it's made him worse off by making him a pariah to many and being slandered left and right.

>It's not a smear, that's literally what a conflict of interest.

I don't think you know what a conflict of interest is. It's not a conflict of interest if I work for an evolution think tank and write a book about evolution. Evolution is true, there is no conflict.

>You mean the research funded by the Pioneer Fund?

So if you disagree with someone who funded research you should refuse to use it? Should we have burned all the scientific and medical research done by the Nazis or should we have used it?


He literally published a book about the issue in 1973. You would have known about that if you went down to his published works. I guess I should challenge you about your baseless claim about Herrnstein. Where did you find that information about him? He clearly had been looking at the subject for at least two decades before the publishing of the Bell Curve.

Kapos still supported the system. Whether they got a nice chocolate bar out of it or not.

--------------

They knew this and they still supported the party. That's not getting into the Jewish German military members whom also supported the Nazi party.

https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Jewish-Soldiers-Descent-Military/dp/0700613587/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502748528&sr=8-1&keywords=Hitler%27s+Jewish+Soldiers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Gancwajch

Just because a group can find an Uncle Tom [a self-hating gay person like Milo] doesn't mean that they suddenly can't be bigoted.

It sounds like you have two subjects, Sam Harris on Israel and is there anything stopping them. I am no friend to Islam, in fact I am in agreement with Sam that "it's the mother load of bad ideas." However, my feelings towards Islam does not blind me to the plight of the Palestinians. It's painful to watch and the sorrow that Israel heaps upon them only fuels and legitimizes the Arab/Muslim world against the West, specifically the US for funding Israel. What is going on there is nothing short of globally accepted genocide.

I too am a huge fan of Sam Harris. For the most part, I agree with everything he so eloquently states...except for Israel. I listen to his podcast every day and find myself marveling at his use of the English language in expressing such well thought out concepts and ideas. However, I try to avoid his talks on Israel, but it's really not that hard since it doesn't come up much. I just accept him for being soft on the subject.

Regarding "nothing stopping them" I hate to submit to the idea that they are on the path to steamroll all Palestinians and nothing will stop them. As long as the US is their money-guy, they will do whatever they want and nobody can say anything. Why? Because there is a huge Israeli lobby by the name of AIPAC that will destroy any American politician that questions Israel. They are organized towards one goal and fund both right and left leaning politicians and to see that goal come true, which is to ensure Israel takes ownership of the entire country of Israel and push out the Palestinians. Zionism is alive and well and its victim is the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, to say anything about the subject turns the speaker into a bigot and antisemite; there is no room to criticize Israel.

I suggest reading two books on the subject The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy and Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

> heritability isn't a measure of genetics.

Now you're playing semantics to the utmost. The fact of the matter is you inherit certain genes from your parents. Your idea that nothing is actually genetically inherited is strange. IQ has been shown to be heritable, as has height. I understand the societal expectations creating the earring "heritability" but I have no idea what you're talking about when you say IQ isn't at least partially inherited from your parents.

> If you're going to so easily dismiss all the relevant scientists on this topic then what differentiates your position from creationism?

Because a professor of genetics at Harvard isn't saying that the position that Christianity is false is scientifically untenable (I would refer you to Dr. David Reich, Ph.D's article in the New York Times). In fact, here's some of it, followed by a link:

> I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism. But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html

His article is a canary in the coalmine event. He claims to have NO IDEA! what we're going to find out about group differences going forward. Then why the hell is he so nervous? Because he knows that the odds are extremely high that the average IQ of a fully-nourished sub-Saharan African population and a fully-nourished Ashkenazi Jew population with equal access to education are not both 100.000000000000000000000000000000. You know that too, you just can't admit it, so you appeal to a scientific consensus that exists because people are terrified of having their careers destroyed. About that consensus...

> Reich’s claim that we need to prepare for genetic evidence of racial differences in behavior or health ignores the trajectory of modern genetics. For several decades billions of dollars have been spent trying to find such differences. The result has been a preponderance of negative findings despite intrepid efforts to collect DNA data on millions of individuals in the hope of finding even the tiniest signals of difference.

That is from the rebuttal letter 67 scientists "wrote" in response to Reich's article in the NYT.

That rebuttal letter is here: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bfopinion/race-genetics-david-reich

Allow me to destroy that argument (and the credibility of that rebuttal letter):

> Why so many African-Americans have high blood pressure
Theories include higher rates of obesity and diabetes among African-Americans. Researchers have also found that there may be a gene that makes African-Americans much more salt sensitive. In people who have this gene, as little as one extra gram (half a teaspoon) of salt could raise blood pressure as much as 5 mm Hg.

https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/high-blood-pressure/why-high-blood-pressure-is-a-silent-killer/high-blood-pressure-and-african-americans

Oops! I guess the American Heart Association is a eugenics society now.

> As for people like Jensen and Rushton, how do you feel about the concept of "conflict of interest"? Are you aware of the Pioneer Fund?

This is an ad hominem attack. Does the medical literature back what he was saying, or not? Has "compensatory education" increased IQ, or not? According to Dr. Haier, it HAS NOT! He has explicity said that compensatory education has not closed the black/white IQ gap. Dr. Haier's position (and he reveals this in his latest book) is that IQ is heritable, and we can raise it using CRISPR. The most generous interpretations of IQ being raised by compensatory education grant that it raised IQ by 4 points in cases of the application of an extremely rigorous program. That's 1/3 of a deviation. According to Haier, what happens is in children it looks like you can increase IQ a great deal, but as the child gets older, IQ becomes more heritable. In other words they lose those "gains".

A description of Haier's book (it was published 2.5 years ago):

> This book introduces new and provocative neuroscience research that advances our understanding of intelligence and the brain. Compelling evidence shows that genetics plays a more important role than environment as intelligence develops from childhood, and that intelligence test scores correspond strongly to specific features of the brain assessed with neuroimaging. In understandable language, Richard J. Haier explains cutting-edge techniques based on genetics, DNA, and imaging of brain connectivity and function. He dispels common misconceptions, such as the belief that IQ tests are biased or meaningless, and debunks simple interventions alleged to increase intelligence. Readers will learn about the real possibility of dramatically enhancing intelligence based on neuroscience findings and the positive implications this could have for education and social policy. The text also explores potential controversies surrounding neuro-poverty, neuro-socioeconomic status, and the morality of enhancing intelligence for everyone.

https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Intelligence-Cambridge-Fundamentals-Psychology/dp/110746143X/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=richard+haier+intelligence&qid=1562195024&s=gateway&sr=8-4

> It’s surprising that there are so many people on this thread (I could be wrong) that still believe in leftist economic policies and believe that bigger government is better, somehow.

What matters is not how "big" or "small" the government is, but who the government works for. Currently, and increasingly so for the past ~40 years, the government works for the wealthy and large corporations. Before you disavow "leftist economic policies" (whatever that means), I suggest you start by reading up on the Great Recession and who actually caused it.

Fiscal conservatism is a bit of a joke. Those who bloviate consistently about the debt (i.e. so-called 'deficit hawks' in Congress or casual internet commentators who are economically illiterate) tend to not understand how the national debt even works. To make just one point, the interest that must be paid on the national debt is at historic lows; we are nowhere close to defaulting or becoming like Greece (like you heard on Fox News all throughout the Obama years). Additionally, debt (public & private) as a percentage of GDP is completely consistent with historical standards.

Look at the comments made by Republican pseudo-economists and con men like Paul Ryan after the Great Recession, who said that QE would debase the dollar and send inflation through the roof, for example. They were abjectly wrong about this and almost everything else, both leading up to the Great Recession and post-2008 as well. Trickle down, voodoo economics has never produced the results that its progenitors said it would. There's simply not a shred of economic evidence that suggests cutting taxes on the rich and mega-corporations would induce economic growth in either wages or GDP. Fiscal policy alone doesn't even cover the extent to which the right was wrong about economics. As I mentioned, almost every right-wing economic commentator was completely and utterly wrong about the Federal Reserve and monetary policy in general in recent years.

Happy to get into more specifics about deregulation, taxes, austerity, consumer protection, etc. But the basic point is that the same policies and ideology that led directly to the worst financial crisis in 75 years are now re-emerging as some sort of Trumpian pseudo-populism. Yeah, these guys really care about the working class, as they try to dismantle Dodd-Frank and undermine the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau every chance they get.

In regards to the size of government, I suggest you read American Amnesia by Pierson and Hacker. The evidence is simply overwhelming that mixed-markets (i.e. social democracy) produce the best societal outcomes across the board. Those who clamor about the size of government and rail about "free-markets" are misunderstanding exactly what a market is to begin with. Markets don't exist in a vacuum; they are a human creation shaped by rules and laws (read Reich and Stiglitz for more on this). It's not convenient for free-market ideologues to talk about contracts, monopolies, intellectual property, consumer protection, labor laws, and the minutia of financial regulation, but those are in fact what actually shape markets. This often falls on deaf ears to right-wingers/libertarian types.

> I agree with you there. What seems a bit left of field to me is this view that we should abandon trading in the dollar and instead move to some anonymous crypto-currency. I can't understand what he hopes to achieve by this or how a country can effectively be run when most people use a currency that makes tax avoidance an impossible thing to clamp down on.

Yeah, I can't say I know enough about monetary/currency policy to have a very informed opinion... I do remember reading a few things in the past that made me think that there could possibly be better ways of doing things. One, I think, was this book: https://www.amazon.com/Life-Inc-Corporatism-Conquered-World/dp/0812978501/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 and another interesting thinker around alternate economic realities is Jaron Lanier. All of these people, including Bret despite his protestations, do come off as a bit utopian... in a sort of silicon valley, this app will change the world kind of way... but at the same time, I think you have to have a bit of that self-confidence to really entertain largely impactful changes in our economic system.

My reading on his reaction to Joe's mention of crypto-currency was that he was allowing for that comparison to be made but I didn't assume that he was saying that it would remain un-taxable... again, I don't know enough but I would imagine there could be a system devised that allowed for a greater segmenting of currency and allow for taxation?

"Intense specialization"?

Free will, dude? Come on. Preach from your made up ivory towers harder.

>If you're genuinely interested in the topic and want to understand it, here's a good starting point: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Oxford-Readings-Philosophy/dp/019925494X

I have read essays from this book. I am familiar with the topic.

Do you have a rebuttal or just more hand waving and holier-than-thou ramblings?

I don't understand how anyone can defend Charles Murray.

https://np.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/6yj3sp/how_is_it_that_harris_finds_charles_murrays_case/?
>
>
> [Cross-posted from an old thread where I just wrote most of this, but that's buried, so moved here]
>
> Sam Harris recently re-tweeted Charles Murray's lamentation:
>
> "This is sad: I will be unable to walk across Harvard Yard tomorrow, on paths I have walked thousands of times. Need a police escort."
>
> While I understand that the Sam Harris community leans more towards the "free speech good (no stipulations)" principle (I'll only say here that free speech is philosophically and politically more complex than this - that's another conversation), I fail to see how the "even-handed approach" to Charles Murray exhibited in Sam's interview can claim to be such when it ignores the funding behind "The Bell Curve". It is intellectually dishonest to ignore the controversy, and dismiss it out of hand - even more questionable when the source, Harris, claims to possess a level of rational detachment and objective standpoint.
>
> Let's bracket the science for a moment, and in the spirit of entertaining the idea that social factors effect or at the very least interact with science through the troublesome biases or worldviews of the scientists themselves (ala Kuhn, Feyerabend etc), take a look at just how influential Murray's association with the Pioneer Fund is. We might admit in other discussions that funding issues can create conflicts of interest, or that it would not be, for instance, absurd to question the validity of a cancer study funded by the tobacco industry. I'm not suggesting the science itself be ignored, but it confuses me how it can be delved into without first dealing with the inherent biases derived from funding. Why would the Pioneer Fund be interested in funding Murray's research? Is it benign? Could its agenda affect the results? Does Murray admit to any of this and offer an alternative?
>
> The Pioneer Fund funded most of the research in the book - that is not contested, and it is a foundation for the study of eugenics. William H. Tucker has been one of the proponents of the claim that the fund had eugenics in mind.
>
> Murray himself only offered this defense: "Never mind that the relationship between the founder of the Pioneer Fund and today's Pioneer Fund is roughly analogous to the relationship between Henry Ford's antisemitism and today's Ford Foundation. The charges have been made, they have wide currency, and some people will always believe that The Bell Curve rests on data concocted by neo-Nazi eugenicists."
>
> I take Murray here to be wholly ignoring the question of undue influence, or shared worldview, but more importantly, he is denying the very nature of the Pioneer Fund (it looks now to be defunct as an organization, as its website no longer exists).
>
> Yet, Gerhard Meisenberg, editor of Mankind Quarterly is one of the fund's current [Clarification, this information is relevant as of 2011-2012]three directors. Quote: 'It has been called a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment" and a "white supremacist journal",[1] "scientific racism's keepers of the flame",[2] a journal with a "racist orientation" and an "infamous racist journal",[3] and "journal of 'scientific racism'".[4]'
>
> The second is Richard Lynn, who has also been accused of being a modern eugenicist, and is also the assistant editor of Mankind Quarterly. He even wrote a book called Eugenics: A Reassessment.
>
> From his Amazon blurb: "Lynn argues that the condemnation of eugenics in the second half of the 20th century went too far and offers a reassessment. The eugenic objectives of eliminating genetic diseases, increasing intelligence, and reducing personality disorders he argues, remain desirable and are achievable by human biotechnology."
>
> See a video here, and the sort of comments it inspires:
>
> "This is a very good argument that the "carrier welfare herd" needs to be culled. This also helps show why Negroes breed like rabbits."
>
> "this is answered in darwinism terms by stating that high birth rates equal low survival rates, today can be viewed as high crime rates."
>
> "RICHARD LYNN, YOU ARE A HERO TO MANY. YOU DARE TO SPEAK THE TRUTH DESPITE THE CONTROVERSY IT GENERATES. BLACK PEOPLE HAVE LOW IQs AND WHITE PEOPLE HAVE HIGH IQs. THAT IS AN OBVIOUS TRUTH THAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES. YOU HAVE TOLD THAT TRUTH CONSISTENTLY AND FOR THAT YOU SHOULD BE CONGRATULATED."
>
> The third is Edward M. Miller: 'Although his training is in economics, Miller has not hesitated to dabble in race-based IQ studies and eugenics. A prize-winning newspaper story last year concluded that blacks, in Miller's view, are "small-headed, over-equipped in genitalia, oversexed, hyper-violent and, most of all, unintelligent."
>
> Speaking of eugenics, the 19th century "science" of improving the human race through selective breeding, in "Eugenics: Economics for the Long Run," Miller concluded: "Efforts to maximize a nation's standard of living should try to improve its citizens' genetic quality, especially with regard to intelligence and other economically important traits."'

While I understand that the Sam Harris community leans more towards the "free speech good (no stipulations)" principle (I'll only say here that free speech is philosophically and politically more complex than this), I fail to see how this even-handed approach to Charles Murray can claim to be such when it ignores the funding behind "The Bell Curve".

The Pioneer Fund funded most of the research in the book - that is not contested, and it is a foundation for the study of eugenics.

Murray himself only offered this defense: "Never mind that the relationship between the founder of the Pioneer Fund and today's Pioneer Fund is roughly analogous to the relationship between Henry Ford's antisemitism and today's Ford Foundation. The charges have been made, they have wide currency, and some people will always believe that The Bell Curve rests on data concocted by neo-Nazi eugenicists."

Yet, Gerhard Meisenberg, editor of Mankind Quarterly is one of the fund's current three directors. Quote: 'It has been called a "cornerstone of the scientific racism establishment" and a "white supremacist journal",[1] "scientific racism's keepers of the flame",[2] a journal with a "racist orientation" and an "infamous racist journal",[3] and "journal of 'scientific racism'".[4]'

The second is Richard Lynn, who has also been accused of being a modern eugenicist, and is also the assistant editor of Mankind Quarterly. He even wrote a book called Eugenics: A Reassessment.

From his Amazon blurb: "Lynn argues that the condemnation of eugenics in the second half of the 20th century went too far and offers a reassessment. The eugenic objectives of eliminating genetic diseases, increasing intelligence, and reducing personality disorders he argues, remain desirable and are achievable by human biotechnology."

See a video here, and the sort of comments it inspires:

"This is a very good argument that the "carrier welfare herd" needs to be culled. This also helps show why Negroes breed like rabbits."

"this is answered in darwinism terms by stating that high birth rates equal low survival rates, today can be viewed as high crime rates."

"RICHARD LYNN, YOU ARE A HERO TO MANY. YOU DARE TO SPEAK THE TRUTH DESPITE THE CONTROVERSY IT GENERATES. BLACK PEOPLE HAVE LOW IQs AND WHITE PEOPLE HAVE HIGH IQs. THAT IS AN OBVIOUS TRUTH THAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES. YOU HAVE TOLD THAT TRUTH CONSISTENTLY AND FOR THAT YOU SHOULD BE CONGRATULATED."

The third is Edward M. Miller: 'Although his training is in economics, Miller has not hesitated to dabble in race-based IQ studies and eugenics. A prize-winning newspaper story last year concluded that blacks, in Miller's view, are "small-headed, over-equipped in genitalia, oversexed, hyper-violent and, most of all, unintelligent."

Speaking of eugenics, the 19th century "science" of improving the human race through selective breeding, in "Eugenics: Economics for the Long Run," Miller concluded: "Efforts to maximize a nation's standard of living should try to improve its citizens' genetic quality, especially with regard to intelligence and other economically important traits."'

>By the way the only one of those categories that is a challenge to capitalism is the bleeding heart liberal.

​

Fact. The real threats to capitalism are the bleeding heart liberals, such as comrade Bono, Robert "Red scare" Redford, and Paul "little Gulag" Mcartney.

​

>The far left will get her hair dye at Walmart or Amazon

​

I recognize this rhetorical rapier well. You must be a pupil of the Shapiro method of Leftist Destruction, unquestionably. Former practitioner of the art, I am. I once found myself debating a female and I was like listen you tainted whore, you claim you are a leftist, and yet I see you are wearing shoes that where made by CAPITALISM. Heroic victory.

I think the best readable overview is Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks (also there's an audio version free on his website here). Critical Theory is an outgrowth of Postmodernism (and Marxism more broadly), and Hicks's book is a great and accessible overview of what it means today.

Which of course is from 1996 (23 years old), and talks about direct evidence, not evidence in general. Such desired direct evidence was published first in 2013, and has since been updated a number of times as new GWASs come out. The results don't really change much, though there are issues with this approach. Most recent publication is https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8611/1/1/5. A slightly less direct approach is to use admixture analysis. 20th century studies of this are mostly supportive of genetic causation (Shuey reviewed these in 1966), and the only published modern study is https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8611/1/1/1. There are a few more of these in review, and more powerful methods (local admixture, GWASs on sibling pairs) exist and studies using these are under way.

So plenty of progress since 1996 and its basically all pointing in the same way.

There's 50 days worth of "daily meditations" at this point, each ~10 minutes long, plus 16 extra lessons ranging from 3.5 minutes to 29 minutes. Judging by the previous newsletters, he tends to add somewhere in the range of 1-5 new lessons or daily meditations every week.

A better bang for your buck might be a copy of The Mind Illuminated plus a free app like Insight Timer or similar.

No, it is not true that AIPAC funds politicians in the USA - it isn't a PAC, it's a lobbying organization.

EDIT: If anybody downvoting me would like to learn something about the truth of how our government operates rather than perpetuate a shallow and illogical conspiracy theory about jewish influence, this AIPAC critical article by Stephen Walt, who literally wrote the book on the Israel Lobby and its negative influence on the american body politic, is a good place to start. For the purposes of this conversation, let me quote the following passage

>Fourth, like other interest groups, the Israel lobby uses a variety of strategies to accomplish its goals. Some of its influence comes from campaign contributions to political parties or politicians (although AIPAC does not do this) ,some from direct lobbying on Capitol Hill, some from public outreach (op-eds, books, position papers, media appearances, etc.), and some from the role that pro-Israel individuals may play in the U.S. government itself.

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> On that note, does anyone have cool fiction/nonfiction recommendations along these lines?

The Atopia Chronicles by mathew mather is a really interesting (fictional) look at a possible near future. It spends the bulk of its time exploring the prospects of advanced Brain Computer Interfaces, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Fair warning, the story is told via a series of short parallel first person novelette like things. It has an overarching narrative laced into all the stories, but you should read it for the world, the ideas, and the short novelettes themselves, which are all interesting in their own ways, not the over arching plot.

https://www.amazon.com/Atopia-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00DUK1RKY

Loved "You Are Not So Smart." Really funny and covers a LOT of fallacies/self-delusions:

https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-So-Smart/dp/1592407366

The fact that arguably the greatest scientific human achievement to date was half a century ago back in 1969 (i.e. putting a man on the moon and bringing him back alive and well) and furthermore achieved with less computing power than a single smartphone today kind of supports the idea that we are, as a species, indeed becoming less intelligent. The handful of geniuses that may still linger or lurk among us are likely in environments less suitable for them to really excel.

Yea because if you're not a white christian or jew it's obvious

We're fighting Muslims over sand no one should care about

Do you not understand our foreign policy?

Here is the most famous book on the topic

https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501

Written by a harvard and a u chicago professor.

I'll say it again. You have no fucking idea waht you're talking about. White nationalists love Israel. You are so unbelievably ignorant. Fucking Hitler loved Israel

If you think we would have invaded Iraq without our relationship with Israel you're fucking delusional. And again proving your ignorance. Stay out of politics. Clearly you know nothing about anyone politics or American policy.

Like I said, it's a waste of time to have a debate on an area of intense specialization with someone who doesn't know the foundations or even basic terminology of the field.

If you're genuinely interested in the topic and want to understand it, here's a good starting point: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Oxford-Readings-Philosophy/dp/019925494X

https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves-Games-BOGGLE-CLASSIC/dp/1223063119/ref=pd_bxgy_21_img_2/141-7148182-4588133?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1223063119&pd_rd_r=3be55183-5821-11e9-ba44-5b53f8bf2b96&pd_rd_w=Y4F37&pd_rd_wg=F1pBr&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=VDHESETFYEEMW62GVFKC&psc=1&refRID=VDHESETFYEEMW62GVFKC

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Big boggle I guess it is called. We honestly dug it up from the basement after it was bought in the like 90's. And me and my parent's started playing and got hooked. My dad was so proud he got the word Senators today which was good but I still beat him with more points and another 8 letter word.

I watched them a month or so ago. It has not changed my view of Putin, though I will say I totally get why Russians love him. The only other insight I got out of that was just how smart Putin is. If I may suggest a book for you:

Putin's Master Plan

I think this book is a great start: Why Buddhism is True

The Richard Haier book, The Neuroscience of Intelligence, he mentioned.

https://www.amazon.com/Neuroscience-Intelligence-Cambridge-Fundamentals-Psychology/dp/110746143X

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/538634aee4b0b15c0516a524/t/583cb4a8c534a59807bbec47/1480373417496/the-neuroscience-of-intelligence-preview.pdf

Virtually all of the hyperlinks lead to bogus media outlets and some of the arguments can only be argued by giving remarkably uncharitable interpretations of things other people said. Consider the one against Ellison. In 2010, Ellison said, “The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of seven million people. A region of 350 million all turns on a country of seven million. Does that make sense? Is that logic? Right?” The author deems this "paranoid anti-Semitic themes." Maybe, or it could be just true, given how many Middle East scholars have made similar claims.

Steve Hick's "Explaining Postmodernism" was reccomended to me the last time this came up on this sub (and is layman friendly for the most part) The publisher has released the audio version for free on youtube. (around 6 hrs total)

Goes through the historical roots of the movement (revival of early theological anti-enlightenment philosophy) and how the post modernist lens shapes ones worldview.

He's critical of post modernism (for the same reasons sam is) but focuses on explaining the base assumptions and precepts of the movement

https://www.amazon.com/At-Our-Wits-End-Intelligent/dp/184540985X/ref=nodl_

Ed Dutton has a youtube channel as well where he has a few long form conversations with Michael Woodley among his other videos.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EHEltPuFelQ

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kLQGLXJutfU

If that's the case why was there no Holocaust in the middle east against the Jews? Why weren't they completely exterminated?

In reality, of course, Mideastern Jews lived in relative peace in the region and were completely integrated until the white supremacist Ashkenazi colonial invasions of the late 19th and 20th century.

Many of these white Ashkenazi Jews were white supremacists and some were outright Nazis.

https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Jewish-Soldiers-Descent-Military/dp/0700613587