Difference between revisions of "11: Sam Harris - Fighting with Friends"

On this episode of The Portal, [[Eric Weinstein|Eric]] talks to one of his closest friends, neuroscientist, philosopher and meditation-guru, [[Sam Harris]]. When Sam and Eric sit down they generally agree about a large number of things. So in this experiment of a session, Eric attempts to push the relentlessly reasonable and methodical Sam out of his comfort zone to highlight their genuine differences. These include: beliefs on religion, the logic of voting for unreasonable candidates, [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s demise, the competence of the press, the ethics of immigration and more.  

I'm called out to a room in back with a huge long, it's sort of exaggerated dining table with a giant American flag as its tablecloth, so that any food or drink that is served on it may spill onto an American flag. And I'm just in high alert, like, "Fuck you. Who, who, who are you?"

'''Sam Harris:''' And I think I, one detail I'd like to add here, in defense of the many people, and the many scientists, who are in this guy's orbit and who didn't know how unseemly his life actually was, some of these young women who you'd meet in his company were not just, you know, bimbos or strippers or that some of these people were going to medical school and there's like, these were like smart young women.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' Well, and adult — no, no, this is incredibly important distinction and I don't think that the news media has done a good job of teasing out. It's very attached to the idea of Pedophile Island and Lolita Express. And that lazy, sensationalist journalism is crowding something out, which is that in general from what I understand, so, I met him in 2000- I think 2004, maybe 2003 but before his Florida incarceration and charges, most people that I knew who met him met him with young adult women. And so, my theory is that he was constructed to be the sapiosexual Hugh Hefner.  

'''Sam Harris:'''   Right.  

'''Eric Weinstein:'''  And that they stupidly hired, probably, and I guess I don't know this, Humbert Humbert for the role, and that, that dichotomy explains at least a lot of the initial willingness of the science community to play with this person. That, I mean, I'll be honest, I'm not particularly judgmental about consenting adults, even if it's probably ill-advised. You know, to have a 50-year spread between two people. If somebody is 20 and somebody's 80 ...

'''Sam Harris:''' There's just, it's a completely different thing is it's very easy to see that if you've seen this guy be sort of the womanizing schmuck, right within the bounds of, you know, total legality and he's surrounded by 20 year olds and you know, he's got a 40 year...  

'''Sam Harris:''' You would never, you would never suspect this other thing about him. Right. Okay.

'''Eric Weinstein:''' That is not a fair defense after the Florida situation, the Florida situation changes that structure.

'''Sam Harris:''' You mean his prosecution or Miami Herald thing that came out like a year ago?  

'''Eric Weinstein:'''  So, a lot of people continued to talk to him in part because - and I think this is something that hasn't been teased out - he was supporting an older style of science, which - this is again, something that's gonna be super complicated - was much more disagreeable. Now the woke movement has seized on this as, well, that's the cowboy oppressive science of male assholes. But he was supporting a network of people who might not have been supported otherwise to somewhat break out of the mold. And because the U.S. government had stepped away from that work, in large measure, in my opinion, people were so dependent on him that they were eager to look the other way. And there was also the hint, I think, that this wasn't really Jeffrey Epstein, that this was really something else funding.

Eric:  Because you can be Sam, I mean, the problem was solved...

Sam:  These guys can be. Sam Seder can be honest on his show and still have a show. Right? Nobody's going to cancel him because he was too honest.  

Eric:  No, I, I think that there's like this very weird other, I mean Sam, I don't want to get into the Sam Seder thing in particular.