Where were you when Sam Harris blew Chomsky the fuck out?

It was last year.

samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse

user, Chomsky exists in a permanent state of being blown the fuck out.

Is that you John Greene?

Chomsky smoked Harris I'm not sure what you guys are seeing. Chomsky really did refute everything Harris said point by point. Although Chomsky was a bit grumpy about it.

what even is a jew at this point?

Chompsky has a higher level of discourse, which makes him seem pedantic. Uneducated people understand Harris better because he has pop appeal and dumbs things down.

>Chomsky really did refute everything Harris said point by point
that's false

Basically all Harris says in this entire exchange is "well we are better than them because our fee fees hurt after we kill thousands of them"

Throw in the bin liberal trash

Sam Harris is literally just trying to say that America is perfect now and we couldn't do anything wrong.

Not at all. Harris criticises US foreign policy at times.

What he is arguing against is the sort of childish black and white thinking you appear to be engaging in.

Sam Harris:
Sure we've done some crimes, but we're Good People so it's excusable.
Muslims are not "at the same stage of moral development" and are barbarians. Therefore when they do barbaric things it's actually bad.

I can't believe anyone on Veeky Forums is falling for this linear perspective bullshit.

I can't believe anyone on Veeky Forums would actually buy the claim that the USA is equivalent to jihadists based on your wildly inaccurate cartoonish distortion of what Harris says.

I really see it the opposite way. Sam Harris is saying that we're good and the Other is bad, so our atrocities are excusable.

I think Chomsky refuted the question of moral equivalence quite well by pointing out the long list of humanitarian offenses by the clinton administration in the case of the Al-Shifa disaster. I'd agree that straight-up terrorism is worse, but I prefer Chomsky's acknowledgment of fault on both sides to Harris' view that America is justified in causing atrocities as long as it is doing it in the name of American Values or some shit.

I don't think Chomsky is trying to absolve the 9/11 hijackers. At worst, he's being a bit of a broken record and using the situation to give his spiel about American foreign policy. He also was a bit of an asshole throughout.

>Sam Harris is saying that we're good and the Other is bad, so our atrocities are excusable.

Not really. He is saying the USA is far from perfect but trying to blame absolutely all the world's ills on US' foreign policy or trying to make out they are worse than terrorists that want to drag the world back to medieval times is laughable.

replying to myself. I don't fully agree with either of them. I think Harris has a somewhat naive view, and I think Chomsky was chopping logic a bit to make a point. For example, I don't agree with:
"On moral grounds, that (ignoring collateral damage) is arguably even worse than murder, which at least recognizes that the victim is human."

He is saying the US is far from perfect, but he goes on to say that we have "good intentions" which makes it better. This statement in and of itself is totally agreeable. However, Chomsky makes a good point that professed intentions shouldn't be taken at face value (especially from politicians). He provides many good examples of this. In the Al-Shifa case, he mentions that there was never any evidence of chemical weapons at the factory.

Once we start taking professed intentions at face value, it is a slippery slope to just going along with whatever the government is telling us (like WMDs in Iraq). This is the danger that Chomsky has been arguing against most of his life.

Again, I think Chomsky goes a bit far by suggesting the terrorists are more moral than us, but that's not the crux of his argument.

Harris' ahistorical contention that we're more morally developed strikes a distinctly bad chord with me though.

Sam Harris is an islamophobic pseud

>This is the danger that Chomsky has been arguing against most of his life.
I have no stake in this argument what so ever, but I find it hilarious that the man who says Pol Pot did nothing wrong is going to lecture anyone about the dangers of letting governments get away with shenanigans.

Who makes this claim?

A delusional person placing themselves back in a time when there were Jews.

>the man who says Pol Pot did nothing wrong

Which man?

ok, nice hyperbole. Chomsky and Herman reviewed many other people's studies on the genocide and concluded that some of them played up/invented communist atrocities to appeal to the public more.

That's what Harris is arguing against. So if this guy is seriously saying Harris is wrong....

So Chomsky made that claim? Where ?

He literally spends the whole discussion claiming the US is worse than jihadists and it is his stated position on just about every aspect of foreign affairs that the US is to blame for everything.

>hyperboles and massive exaggerations and outright lies
You seem to be flustered.

Considering the first post I replied to was this you've got some cheek on you. My description of Chomsky is far more accurate.

As the person you first replied to: I wasn't talking about Chomsky...I sorta agree with your description of his arguments in the discourse with Harris. The two were talking past each other to some degree.

Chomsky seems to be indulging in a bit of hyperbole in order to make (what I view as) an important point about US foreign policy.

Harris seems to be arguing that Muslims are evil and haven't "developed enough."

(Me)
Perhaps a good synthesis of both of their beliefs would be:
Meddling by western powers in the affairs of Middle Eastern politics has caused instability that has allowed crazy fundamentalist elements with a violent interpretation of the ku'ran to gain significant power.

It seems a bit pointless to argue about who is more in the wrong, which Harris seemed intent on doing. I interpret this insistence as trying to form a sort of moral high ground in order to dehumanize Muslims.

I don't think there is any doubt that Muslim countries in general are less developed in a lot of ways, not just economic, and "evil" is a ridiculously emotional term and not something Harris has ever said.

Not only that but in the conversation he is, generally speaking, specifically referring to jihadists, you trying to widen that out into "all Muslims" as if all Muslims are jihadists is just anti-Muslim bigotry, something Harris opposes.

Muslim countries aren't developed enough. He's right.

Perhaps you know more about Harris' views that I do, but he entirely failed to make the distinction throughout this discourse.

"Any honest witness to current events will realize that there is no moral equivalence between the kind of force civilized democracies project in the world, warts and all, and the internecine violence that is perpetrated by Muslim militants, or indeed by Muslim governments."

"Any systematic approach to ethics, or to understanding the necessary underpinnings of a civil society, will find many Muslims standing eye deep in the red barbarity of the fourteenth century."

The term Jihadist was never used in the email correspondence, and these two passages represent every usage of the word muslim.

You and Harris are right that the Middle East is less developed than the West right now. But a huge factor in that is imperialism by the west over the last 50+ years. While that may not be the most important fact when talking about the threat of jihadism today, it is naive to ignore it. I think there is still a strong case to be made for changing our foreign policy.

He's referring to Chomsky's fervent denial of the Khmer Rouge's mass murders.

He's not a "The Holocaust is a tragic result of lots of Jews dying of typhus" style drnier but a "No Jew ever died I. Nazi Grant, Auschwitz, doesn't exist", ala Cenk Ughyur and the Armenian genocide.

>"Any honest witness to current events will realize that there is no moral equivalence between the kind of force civilized democracies project in the world, warts and all, and the internecine violence that is perpetrated by Muslim militants, or indeed by Muslim governments."

Militants and governments aren't "all Muslims" and are you honestly disputing the accuracy of that sentence?

>"Any systematic approach to ethics, or to understanding the necessary underpinnings of a civil society, will find many Muslims standing eye deep in the red barbarity of the fourteenth century.

"Many" isn't "all" and sadly that sentence is again indeed accurate. I note you can't dispute the actual words.

>But a huge factor in that is imperialism by the west over the last 50+ years.

This is just nonsense. Compare the US and Europe to the Muslim world 50 years ago. I'm not remotely defending imperialism but the idea that their development (or lack of it) is mainly down to imperialism is laughable.

While the Ottomans were on the decline they were hardly a failed state. The artificial cutting up of it's territories and peoples and the exploitation of the newly created countries was setting them up to fail.

I think my main issue with Harris is that he seems to lack historical context. He claims that we have the moral high ground. His only argument that I can pinpoint (other than the question of intentions which Chomsky answered to my satisfaction) is that we are more "culturally developed." This kind of subjective rhetoric strikes me as being dangerous.

From a completely relativist viewpoint, both sides are pursuing an ideology using violence. Just because we view our ideology as better isn't a justification for imperialism.

>His only argument that I can pinpoint (other than the question of intentions which Chomsky answered to my satisfaction) is that we are more "culturally developed." This kind of subjective rhetoric strikes me as being dangerous.
A lot of his philosophy is about finding scientific ways of proving morality. He's probably right, in all honesty.

The Ottoman Empire ended nearly a century ago. That has nothing to do with the last 50 years.

I think you need to remember the context this is taking place in. Harris is a moderate centrist on US foreign policy. Chomsky is an extremist that does nothing but attack the US.

And again, if you don't think the West is more culturally developed than say Pakistan or Saudi Arabia then I don't know what is wrong with you, unless you support lashing the non-religion to death. It's not an argument to say "saying accurate things is dangerous".

>finding scientific ways of proving morality
And that's why no one takes him seriously. It's seriously beyond positivism in terms of its stupidity.

I mean he only has a BA in philosophy. That doesn't mean shit. I live with someone who is more highly educated in philosophy. He's not anywhere near as smart as he thinks he is.

>Pol Pot did nothing wrong
He retracted those views later and said at that time it was difficult to figure out the truth. He agreed Pol Pot was a monster.

>Journalist Christopher Hitchens defended Chomsky and Herman. They "were engaged in the admittedly touchy business of distinguishing evidence from interpretations."[21] Chomsky and Herman have continued to argue that their analysis of the situation in Cambodia was reasonable based on the information available to them at the time, and a legitimate critique of the disparities in reporting atrocities committed by communist regimes relative to the atrocities committed by the U.S. and its allies. Nonetheless, in 1993, Chomsky acknowledged the massive scale of the Cambodian genocide in the documentary film Manufacturing Consent. He said, "I mean the great act of genocide in the modern period is Pol Pot, 1975 through 1978 - that atrocity - I think it would be hard to find any example of a comparable outrage and outpouring of fury."[22]

And the middle east of 50 years ago is the product of western imperialism and that imperialism is a huge reason why it's such a shit hole. It literally goes Ottomans then western created states. There isn't a middle ground.

My issue with Sam Harris is it's obvious he wants to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies for economic purposes. He is actually a bigger scoundrel than people think. He does not care about Middle Eastern nations secularizing beyond serving America's economic interests, and they many have secularized in the past only to have USA/UK meddle in their affairs. However, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, like UAE which was literally built from slave labor of foreigners, will most likely never secularize, and the only reason USA/EU/UK/Israel like them is due to being passive markets.

If Sam Harris were more upfront about his political realism and Machiavellian attitude, I would have no issue with him, but he is actually remarkably stupid in regards to the geopolitical history of the Middle East.

And what does Chomsky have?

>And the middle east of 50 years ago is the product of western imperialism and that imperialism is a huge reason why it's such a shit hole.

Islam is a far bigger reason.

You're just denying the agency of Muslims, pure bigotry. You're indulging in the racism of low expectations because Muslims mainly have brown skin. Shame on you, racist.

There are three (arguably two) spheres of power in the Middle East, each with its own problems. You cannot be friends with all of them. You have to pick and choose. It's obvious which sphere Sam Harris prefers.

>The Ottoman Empire ended nearly a century ago. That has nothing to do with the last 50 years.

you didn't address his argument at all. He was saying that "The artificial cutting up of it's territories and peoples and the exploitation of the newly created countries was setting them up to fail."
So they failed to advance much for 50 years, and then the west decided to start meddling again for the last 50 years.

>it's an antinationalists and globalists blame all of MENA's problem on the lack of nationalism episode
As a 21st century nationalist this always amuses me

>you didn't address his argument at all. He was saying that "The artificial cutting up of it's territories and peoples and the exploitation of the newly created countries was setting them up to fail."
>So they failed to advance much for 50 years, and then the west decided to start meddling again for the last 50 years.

He literally interjected the Ottoman Empire into a discussion about the last fifty years and he has further clarified since then and I have answered him.

user said 50+, not 50. It was stated that imperialism being the main reason for the lack of development was laughable. I countered that they were much better off before western influence. This is relevant information that is fully within the scope of what is being discussed.

The rise of radical Islam is in many ways a response to western influence over the middle east. Much of the ethnic and religious problems arise from peoples being split between states, with antagonistic groups being lumped into the same state. I'm not saying that the west's influence is the sole reason, but it is a huge part of the reason why the middle east has such problems.

I support capital punishment because Sam Harris exists.

>The rise of radical Islam is in many ways a response to western influence over the middle east. Much of the ethnic and religious problems arise from peoples being split between states, with antagonistic groups being lumped into the same state. I'm not saying that the west's influence is the sole reason, but it is a huge part of the reason why the middle east has such problems.

Are you saying the West imported the ideological building blocks of radical Islam into the Middle East? You're just being racist and claiming that the oil rich Middle East has no agency because rich white men are racially superior, disgusting bigotry.

You can't just blame the West for a one thousand year old ideology and all its permutations.

>user said 50+, not 50.

*shrugs*

That means approx 50 years unless you are leaving it completely open ended.

Saying 50+ and then going back nearly a hundred years is more than a hyperbole, it's plain dishonest.

>The rise of radical Islam is in many ways a response to western influence over the middle east.
>The rise of radical Islam isn't because of the religious dogma and doctrines written like a thousand years ago and cultivated for hundreds of years by Muslim scholars which jihadists explicitly state is their motivation to commit terror, but instead because muh western imperialism
lad...

>I can't believe anyone on Veeky Forums would actually buy the claim that the USA is equivalent to jihadists

You're right, the USA is far worse than jihadists by an extreme amount.

t. Abdul

Fuck off kike

Nice argument.

Remember when the US started the Taliban?
Remember when the US helped Saddam kill Kurds?
Remember when the US then decided he was getting too full of himself so simply destroyed Iraq?
Remember when the US destroyed Libya for no good reason?
Remember when the US funnelled arms and money to terrorists who have the capability to use chemical weapons? (right now)
Remember between the second world war and today the US did everything it could to remove secular nationalism from the middle east creating the culturally backwards societies we see now?

Or do you know nothing about the middle east?

>sand niggers need US help to kill each other
>secular nationalists in the Middle East need US help to fail hideously

Nigga, the US literally backstabbed its two closest and most powerful allies on behalf of the secular nationalists in Egypt.

And who the fuck do you think Saddam was?

Saddam said he had them. Good enough to invade him.

>worlds richest region would fail even if we didn't actively try to destroy it! i-it's t-true!!
Keep your racism to yourself.

>US literally backstabbed its two closest and most powerful allies on behalf of the secular nationalists in Egypt.
Fuck off, they just didn't consider it worth the effort.

Even one of the things listed makes them worse than all Jihadis.

Squabbling over their intentions is all you can do when the evidence is looking you right in the face. The cult of America needs to be ground into dust.

>worlds richest region would fail even if we didn't actively try to destroy it! i-it's t-true!!

This is true for Africa too.

Resources do not equal success. Wealth is primarily the result of institutions and culture.

>Fuck off, they just didn't consider it worth the effort.

The US wasn't involved. We threatened to crash the British economy if they didn't end the war. This was at a time when the Britain and France were the two greatest world powers after the US and USSR.

After the whole Mossedegh thing, the US wasn't falling for the eternal Anglo's bullshit.

>Wealth is primarily the result of institutions

I agree! Why is this not a more common view.

>The US wasn't involved. etc

Right, but they thought they would have to be due to Soviet involvement and they didn't want that situation at the time. They also saw the situation even if it were to be a success would undermine their hegemony.

Also mate do you know that Botswana has been the highest growing economy for the longest time since it avoided IMF interference? One has to wonder why there hasn't been a coup.

>Sam Harris blew Chomsky the fuck out
I didn't even know who Chomsky was & I say Harris got fucked in that debate. Too much "U.S. has good intent therefore good no matter what they do" for me to take him seriously.

>Too much "U.S. has good intent therefore good no matter what they do" for me to take him seriously.
Sam explicitly states that he doesn't justify all of America's actions. Did you even read it

Are you saying the West imported the ideological building blocks of radical Islam into the Middle East?
No. I never said that anywhere nor was it implied. Looking for negative relationships assumes only two possibilities and is a poor way of making an argument.

>You're just being racist and claiming that the oil rich Middle East has no agency because rich white men are racially superior, disgusting bigotry.
Nothing of this is even implied with anything I said. This is pure character assassination.

>You can't just blame the West for a one thousand year old ideology and all its permutations.
I didn't. I said that the rise of radical Islam is in many ways a response to western imperialism. Islam has existed for roughly fourteen hundred years as have Islamic bigots but I refer to the resurgence in the 20th century of Islamism. The phenomenon is known as the Islamic revival. I am only talking about this modern phenomenon. I also didn't say it was the only cause, or the only major cause only that it was a major cause.

>Saying 50+ and then going back nearly a hundred years is more than a hyperbole, it's plain dishonest.
This completely ignores the point I made that talking of the Ottomans is entirely relevant to the discussion and that it makes no sense of taking a random and arbitrary point in time and ignoring discussion of relevant and important antecedent events.

At no point did insert moral implications into anything I said. I did not excuse the actions of Islamist (or of the west or of anyone) and merely stating causes and effects does not make any sort of moral claim. You have read value judgments into what were merely meant to descriptive observations.

The United States did not create the Taliban. The Taliban was a combination of Pashtun of Afghanistan and Pakistani funding/permission, although the extent isn't entirely clear, and may not be for decades. The American government did, however, provide arms to both the Taliban and Northern Alliance with the goal of fighting off the Soviet Union.

The US gave Saddam Hussein tanks, planes, missiles, ammunition, weapons, training, and a green card to do a lot of bullshit, but no agent of the American government provided Hussein's regime with chemical weapons.
Saddam Hussein was a destabilizing agent in the region for decades, and invaded Kuwait and Iran. Removing him was a when, not an if question.
Gaddafi was another globally destabilizing agent, openly funding the IRA and other terrorist groups, and laying mines in the Red Sea, one of the most important global commercial routes.
Which terrorists is the US currently funding that have chemical weapons? ISIS only has chemical weapons insofar as what they've captured from Assad's regime, and the US+coalition is just about on the edge of kicking ISIS to pieces.

Simplifying the Middle Eastern situation, and ignoring that many of those secularist regimes, such as Syrai, were not only extremely friendly to the USSR, but openly hostile to the US, is pretty dishonest.

Yes I did & he still heavily insisted that the U.S. is better than the rest, calling the U.S. a "well intentioned giant", with that strange thought experiment of his. The only times I remember he said the U.S. did wrong was to follow up with "But it's okay & forgiven because good intentions. We're still good as a whole" while brushing it off as seriously as someone would a little white lie .

Not him, but I think part of the reason he argues that way is because the West is self-correcting in a way that other societies seemingly aren't.

The slave trade for example, had existed for thousands of years, and yet by the start of the 19th century it was made illegal everywhere the West had power and influence, which essentially meant the end of an institution that is probably as old as humanity itself.

There are plenty of things that are wrong with the West, but they will be sorted out in time. However, suicidal terrorism can't be sorted out by us, unless they simply stop doing it.

Now that the dust has settled, what the fuck was his problem? What was his endgame? Thoughts?

>but they will be sorted out in time
Some things like slavery weren't even considered really immoral in some places. Within the next 100 or so years it'll become bad to eat apples & then those future people would say we're immoral for eating them.

>Within the next 100 or so years it'll become bad to eat apples & then those future people would say we're immoral for eating them.

lol

>how to trigger a nationalist

lol'd

don't argue with racists online, it never works

we oppose those cowards in the streets, where history is made

itsgoingdown.org/

Copy and paste
youtu.be/tZxH4QYLRQY
to find out exactly what race Mohammad believes is superior.

I hate Chomsky just because a friend found him and now won't shut up about how much he hates America and it's really annoying

Chomsky ain't the word of god but Harris comes across as someone who literally cannot engage with another person in a debate or discussion. Harris repeats his old line about intention being the only thing that matters in terms of morals, Chomsky replies that stated intentions of politicians might not reflect their real intentions and they have caused a lot of suffering in any case. Harris then tries to shut down the conversation by saying the exchange isn't going well and can he put the emails on his website to prove it.

Good advice. I find it funny that I was called a Jew and an Arab at the same time.

some are Jews and Arabs at the same time

tell them to read How to Win Friends and Influence People. That will shut them up.

I hate him because he takes up half of the politics shelves in popular books stores

What comments has he made that you you to believe that those are his motives/beliefs? I have heard him acknowledge that middle eastern oil is massively important to the world economy and that the fact that it is threatened by religious extremists is a major issue. But that is not the same thing as only wanting them to secularize for selfish reasons. One could be concerned about the health and happiness of a doomsday/end-times Christian in Kansans and another in the White House, but its still clear which one represents a bigger risk to world stability.

Is that you "john wayne"

Chomsky should stick to linguistics. Sam Harris is a fag though.

Deontology > Consequentialism

Your intentions imply a trend of future behavior. Sometimes "bad" results will emerge as a result of this behavior but in the long run there will be a net "good"

It was basicly Chomdky trying to explain his opinion while Sam Harris literally did nothing but repeat his own opinion and act like he won the debate the moment he said it

The difference between the two is that even if you disagree with Chomsky you can still respect him while Harris sounds like an arrogant Psuedo Intellectuals who can't respect different opinion and thinks hes hot shit

Given how some previously everyday shit like slavery is considered immoral today, something like that is possible.

>#plantlivesmatter

You can't use consequential reasoning to argue for deontology because it ceases to be deontological. At best what you have is some rule based utilitarianism.