I admit I used to like Sam Harris. Eventually this started to fade. Now I actively dislike him and his podcast and his meditation course.
Key problems:
He strawmans every debate rival as disingenuous and/or hysterical and eventually accuses them of character assassination and acting in a dangerous “bad faith” manner.
He’s obsessed with downplaying the significance of white supremacy.
He’s not qualified to teach mindfulness meditation and drives very far out of his lane in his course.
He argues that putting his content behind a paywall is good for his listeners even though he’s already rich.
He’s never been poor. He brags about his time in Asia but he never worked in Asian economies. Obviously his parents sponsored his time in Asia and his education because he had no income at the time. I worked in Asia and paid for my travels completely on my own so I’m not especially impressed that he was there on someone else’s dime.
He thinks LSD and MDMA provide a shortcut to enlightenment and frequently tells the same drug stories again and again. This is only a partial truth. These drugs offer a new look at consciousness and LSD can create ego death but you can’t recreate it without using the drug again and then you fall on diminishing returns.
He can’t see things from the perspective of people who have different experiences.
He acts like verbal attacks are as damaging as physical attacks.
He considers himself a neuroscientist but he hasn’t contributed a single thing to the field. A scientist does experiments and publishes results for peer review. He hasn’t done that.
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