Freedom & Censorship: A Conversation with Greg Lukianoff (Episode  

The anti-Semitism in Europe has much more to do, sadly, with the large Muslim population here, rather than any nuanced difference to the European vs. U.S. approach to free speech.

One problem is that so many people apparently can not distinguish between opinion and fact.

I miss the pre-internet days growing up in New Zealand. We all watched the same news, read the same newspapers. We might've disagreed on the information contained therein, but this whole kneejerk epistemic partisanship we see today was not around then.

Surprised Sam just seems to posit abstract, neutral, perfectly informed arbiters who will "check" misinformation. Meanwhile, here in reality, the list of abusive, power hungry idiots who actually assume such powers is long and tedious.

Free speech isnt a problem on social media sites. The recommendation system that curates content is.

Everything other than myself at this moment in time, 6 minutes after this video was posted, appears to be a bot, and the bots argue with themselves, sometimes a bot will defend Sam and in another comment insult him. It is truly insane.

Another fantastic conversation. Excellent as usual.

The level of information with social media & internet has passed a limit that makes the sensible information lost. Accurate information is now buried deep inside noise. As Sam point it out, because conspiracy theories more intriguing, they further would be at the forefront on social media (algorithm, etc). To make things worse, social media also have got lots of tools for creating echo chambers (groups, etc.). So, it's not same as printing era at all! Yes, having a single verifiable account could reduce but won't stop. Maybe, the only good news is that a big portion don't believe anything anymore rather than believing in stupid things (lesser of 2 evils).

Anybody know where I can find the Boger Center for the performing arts?

Bro I lost 2 subscriptions over the years with you and you cut this conversation off at a horrible time. Finish at least part of the question before you end it. Why am I even listening to this anymore.

Thank you Sam and Greg! I started my post secondary education at SMU in the 1976/77 term. At that time all students were required to take a series of courses described as encompassing “The nature of man”. The required reading included a wide range of theological and philosophical writers and subsequent classroom discussions. No doubt that this influenced my future thinking about what is believable and what is not, aka “critical thinking “. So to all you STEM advocates out there, you are just corporate pawns. Teach people to think and observe and we will have a better world 😮

Great discussion

Selection For Societal Sanity.

Haven't listened yet. Waiting to see if there's a "Palestinians = Hamas" tie-in that comes with every Sam Harris podcast these past few months. No spoiler alerts, please!

community notes are a great invention but they need improvement

Before the term “political correctness” came on, it was called “stereotyping” ( “Hey, you’re stereotyping!”). And even before that, in the 70s, people used to say, “ You’re generalizing”. But always the same motive: To shut you down and end observation.

Sam Harris - lead detective of the Thought Police 😂

Hunter’s laptop has utterly broken Sam.

In my country Norway people are now going to actual prison for saying stuff like the n-word or "get back to your own country", wait till it comes to a place near you it's not so funny anymore

We're piling on Roseanne Barr with no push back at all? Really? Sam if you can see the "There were bad people on both sides" comment from Trump for what it really was, can you not do the same for Roseanne? She's explained she didn't even realise that woman she made the Planet of the Apes comment about was black. She doesn't look black.

The "reliable expert" challenge has 2 aspects, one is being able to "translate" between different points of view, the other is being able to say intelligent things about a particular subject. And there aren't enough translators currently.

He brings up a very important point, the difference between free speech and disinformation. Disinformation renders us ungovernable, I have pondered this often. Because the average person doesn’t know what the truth is anymore, especially in the US where education is in a sorrowful condition. It leads to apathy and nihilism, and the horrendous polarization we are living with. Identifying what is disinformation is key, discerning the kernels of truth from which conspiracy theories spring, is key. For example, the truth is the US has done some awful things that betrayed the public trust (Tuskegee syphillis experiment, WMD didn’t exist in Iraq, mk ultra) but that doesn’t mean lizard people rule the earth.

Our constitutional rights should be protected from any form of overreach private or public

You really should mention if you didn’t ( or if it hasn’t already by another poster) “The Closing Of The American Mind” by the late Alan Bloom. That was 1987. So, we can keep going back and back further.

This is very interesting topic for me cause I live in Brazil (perhaps one of the only countries in the world with a similar diversified "cultural" sphere as the united states, perhaps even more),but we are much less "free-speech" oriented than USA, to the point that some people literally fled from Brazil to the USA cause they were Free-speech quasi-absolutist (in Brazil you cant say you think a nazi party should have the right to exist for example). But man, are we suffering cause of the lack of fake news control over here. People did a worse version of the January 6 United States Capitol attack cause of fake news which some would argue were just different opinions. People started beliving covid wasnt real and started dying back in the day. Heck, this month we had some massive floods over here and because of some bizarre conspiracy theory that our food and water donations were going to the gov we stopped sending people aid. What is worse is that this was mostly started and ended in twitter, instagram but we cant control it, I wont say it would be better if there was some kind of control, the data for my country specifically is not big enough, but I am not sure if there is a universally right or wrong approach to the question. Like, what works in USA would be disatrous here and vice versa

This conversation belongs in 2016. Same repackaged, reheated garbage over and over.

19:39 to 24:11 - A good argument in favor of free speech.

Oof 10:00 ""harassment... OF A PROTECTED CLASS" is the first example from the champion of a free speech organization? We're in trouble.

Has politics changed much? From the start, Washington was wary about the formation of political parties, convinced that partisans would shred the young nation’s fragile unity. But the first president had accidentally planted the seeds of the two-party system by placing Hamilton and Jefferson, the nation’s most ferocious partisans, in his cabinet. “So seditious, so prostitute a character,” Hamilton said of Jefferson. “A man whose history … is a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country,” Jefferson wrote of his rival in a 1792 letter to their mutual boss. Credit: NY Post

What is the opposite of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)?

Sam just keeps saying “algorithm”. Its not magic, its just that people click on certain things.

I would adjust Sam's analogy about Alex Jones on X (Twitter) a little bit. In this case Jones is not the waitor costing the restaurant business. He is the loud and drunk customer who gets asked to leave the premise. The question then remains: is this customer banned permanently from Piesanos or does he get another chance to eat there again?

Is Sam still pro censorship?

34:18 The New York Times is trying to be better. Hilarious.

Social media could work as a positive force for finding the truth. It just needs to be structured with the right incentives. Two examples of correctly structured 'social media' are stackoverflow and wikipedia. These platforms are both self regulated by the masses and have become a trusted source of truth. Neither have a have a 'like' button.

Sam goes from taking a shot at MTG to advocating for canceling people. Sophisticated guy, but one foot in the ultra far-left.

“Decentralized disconfirmation of information” 30:28

As a German, I was quite disappointed in the very superficial and shallow analysis of the speech limitations in my country. Particularly the German law is much more nuanced than it is portrayed here. It serves a very practical and meaningful purpose that even extends to the public funding of political parties etc. (and it does that relatively well). Again, this part of the conversation was really odd to me. The German law could serve as a fantastic example for an exploration on how the concept of a "marketplace of ideas" in general might be a very narrow and limited concept regarding its practical implications.

Oh what a shock.... Sam interviews someone he agrees with 🙄

Wouldn't a person's or a private institution's stated opinion that someone or something be "canceled" just them using their free speech? Is this guest essentially advocating for the cancelation of the cancelors he doesn't agree with?

Sam appears to be more concerned with harm done from bad faith actors than he is of censorship. Personally, I'd rather not chuck out the bad so as to decrease the odds of mistakenly discarding the worthy (who ever gets to define it ...). Nothing has changed in that sunshine is still the best (although, not perfect) approach to dealing with disagreeable speech. Show why the speech is wrong, bad, egregious, ... let's not censor it.

Excelente Sam Harris.

I'll be looking forward to the I.C.C issues Benjamin Netanyahu an arrest warrant episode. Always value Sam's opinion on pretty much every topic over any other intellectual.

This is all very well but these principles of free speech need to be somehow incorporated into the online tech giants and places of work. The argument that these are private companies who can run their own rules has run its course. The cultural debate and policy making is happening online on these platforms, and for that reason we need free speech in these places, otherwise the democratic process is warped and corrupted.

A lot of bots in the chat

The subject of censorship basically boils down to “how much poison can a system handle before it becomes inoperable?” People who hold the absolutist point of view mistakenly think that Western Democracy is impervious to poison or abuse. There are limits and whenever there are limits there are going to be people who disagree.

This guy has that unlistenable upwards inflection, strangely lots of tech people have a similar speech defect. I guess they think it makes them sound more expressive and less robotic. Wrong.

Sheesh, Sam’s desire for government censorship is insane.

This guy makes next to no sense. Here we are talking about censorship which two men apparently agree on but at the same time there is zero "conspiracy" to shut people up. This guy should throw his degree in the trash.

Sam, I need you to stay out of my personal data, and stop waging psyops with my personal data. Please and thank you. I wont budge on this, I need my cognitive autonomy. Please and thank you.

This is a very good episode, I think it's become pretty clear to me, as to what's going on in terms of a slight difference btw Sam's approach to this subject matter, as slightly differentiated from that of ppl probably like both Greg and myself. These two approaches aren't particularly at odds in any way, just starting from a somewhat different set of considerations: Sam seems mainly focused on how audiences and groups, especially LARGE ones in society, will be influenced by information. It's not good or bad, just an appropriate characterization, to say that this set of considerations bears resemblance to that of a politician for example, (or a public intellectual who manages to be widely successful across a range of media, lol). I won't exactly equate my approach to media and info with Greg's, but speaking for myself, I have almost zero concern with diving into narrow, little-frequented areas of media, that might be inappropriate, biased, misleading, but contain either an interesting sociological perspective indicative of the workings of a subset of the population, or sometimes actually contain surprisingly useful info that will not be available elsewhere. Again, Sam wouldn't say that someone like me shouldn't be free to search the web (as an adult) and access ALL kinds of legal content, as I so wish. (Actually, one of my few disagreements with Sam involves a case in which he WOULD want to restrict me in such a way, at the risk of belaboring the point this involves Covid, and the expediency with which restrictive martial law should be effectively declared, I maintain that he's moderately misaligned on this point, and Claire Lehmann is perhaps maximally misaligned). He's rly talking mostly abt norms. He thinks ppl should have certain kinds of sensibilities, reflected at the height of MAINSTREAM discourse, in a way that's maintained via the marketplace, editorial decisions made by privately owned companies, policies set by individuals who own platforms, etc. Is social media now equated with the public sphere? Well of course, literally/legally, no. But figuratively, and implicitly? That depends on how both citizens and company owners DECIDE to treat the platforms. Clearly my own sensibility is not so neatly shaped within the parameters of the mainstream zeitgeist. However, does that mean that my eclectic and idiosyncratic palate should be maximally amplified in the public discourse? The answer is, that actually depends on consumer demand, popular sentiment, and on what kinds of products/content are made available by large companies. Personally, I usually think meta-trolls are hilarious. But when it's the president? When it's our leading industrialist (Elon) who's trwling on our biggest platform for lolz? Sure, I can obviously see how this is potentially corrosive to civil discourse. But again, here's where Sam and I might slightly differ: what should happen next? It sounds from this episode like we'd agree more than I necessarily realized, but my answer is that until existing laws are broken, it's the market that decides what happens next. And it's normative culture. How are norms shaped? It's an interesting question, suffice it to say I'm convinced it generally involves incremental evolution over centuries rather than decades, at least when getting down to socionormative bedrock. So, will the market select against Elon's newish Frankenstein platform, wherein shifting company policies are determined by a combination of the First Amendment, and whatever mood memelord Musk is in on a given day? Sry Sam, I'm not exactly thrilled abt the mess this potentially creates, but the answer is determined by whatever a critical mass of platform users decide, and how many or few ultimately decide to take their business elsewhere. Are they captured by an algorithm? Has our mainstream culture completely degenerated? I obviously hope not, yet I also can't exactly say that I think an Elon-type disruptor shaking up the major social media space is 100% bad. But either way (as Greg essentially argues) you and I and everyone will continually be made aware of the state of our culture, as marketplace dynamics and disruptive public conversations continue to play out, in our free liberal society.

I’d love more science and philosophy, more astrophysics and origins of quantum mechanics, and less war, both physical and cultural, and less politics

Sam still hasn't learned the lesson of why free speech is important and why consequences for speech is a dangerous game.

What are Sam's political credentials, again?

I might be one of the most shadowbanned atheists by the junk journalists in the political venues.

I really think that you need to debate with more Europeans on the subjet, you're point of view is a caricature. Not sure that you have more "free speech" in fine in US than in US. You just have the "luck" to let crazy guy like Alex Jones, where we have laws to restricted that. But please make the comparaison about gender, wokism and so on. I'm prettu sure that Europe is more free on those topics.

sam stop being such an authoritarian please

Given that Sam is pro censoship ( Hunters disgusting laptop) Im not sure how much value I can put on his opinions here.

This conversation was concluded a few centuries ago now. Nothing has changed. We are in a sticky situation, but we will get through it. There is no worse speech than that which advocates censorship - no speech has done more damage in human history - and yet i support Sam's right to advocate it, as dangerous as it and he is.

Israel

Sam greatly over simplified the Waco incident there . Yes the government was way over the top but shady stuff ( and illegal) was going on.

Sam's comparison of social media to a restaurant that fires an employee or blacklists a customer is quite flawed. The purpose of a restaurant is to serve food, the purpose of a social media platform is to enable people to speak to each other. A social media platform that's too restrictive with speech is doomed - unless the government forces all social media platforms to conform to a certain standard of what is and isn't allowed, in which case, there won't be any competition, and everything will just suck. People want to be able to speak freely. As long as a service offers that, and isn't being artificially restricted by the powers that be, like what goes on in China, it will always win. Also, Sam's info on 4 and 8chan is a little bit outdated - they're not particularly free platforms anymore.

Id love to hear Sams thoughts on the USS Liberty incident. Or why jews have been kicked out of 109 countries throughout history. These topics are brought up a lot these days and I don't know how to respond to them. beep boop. I am not a bot beep beep boop.

Sam Harris- master of the micro-pause, one of his more peculiar conversational habits.

Bro Sam fell off 😂

Sam is a fierce advocate for free speech when it comes to speech in which he is in agreement.

The canceling of the American mind isn't coming from people who actually get to experience higher education and then some kind of political cancellation. It's people like me who were born to drug addicts who did not save a dime for them to experience higher education and I'm forced to be an app delivery driver in my mid-30s.

Sam voted for someone that is directly contributing to the world being on fire. Thanks bro.

Sam begins the discussion by extolling the virtues of free speech. He ends the conversation by celebrating the censorship of offensive speech. He’s a perfect example of what can happen when you’re smart enough to think yourself into delusion.

I have an issue right at the start. While I understand that your experience is in speech the law that says this private institution can't censore runs counter to the private schools policies on religion. If government can tell the private school what they can and can't do about speech, then they can also set rules for religion in a private school as well, correct? If your thinking that's it's true your logic is constant but I think we both agree that doesnt happen for practicing religion.

SAM i am struggling with your take on this conflict. I'm being honest and open, but please don't become what you taught me is incorrect.

Sam Harris celebrates that Alex Jones was buried out in the digital desert. That's not sociopath speak.

Just can't listen to privileged people talk about their non problems.

Sam is a World Champion Pseudo intellectual. Sammy The Pseudo Harris.

Damn Sam , have you joined the morons with the red hats ? Watch Jon Stewart today , he explains cancel culture well.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qZJE7dLgfxc.html Douglas Murray dismantle the word "Islamophobia". Talks about Amin Al Hussaini reception in Egypt.

Can someone tell sam harris @destiny \ steven bonell ii wants to chat with him?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance