I hadn’t realized it before you mentioned it but you are right. Sam is not listening. This is true of him generally speaking. IMHO He does not enter into a conversation in good faith or just fails to engage in a dialogue the same way many others do. He is not playing a game. He is out to win. One thing I did notice that was slightly different about his demeanor this time was that he seemed to enter this conversation knowing he had won. It’s like they are talking past one another. It’s like Jordan throws the ball to Sam and Sam just lets it go past him only to keep saying whatever point he was trying to make. There is no ebb and flow. Because of that it ends up being a rather two dimensional conversation that lacks any depth.
Paul. Sam doesn't get it because he *can't* get it. His whole philosophy, his whole belief, is biased towards not seeing inherent value in the individual. He can't concede any points Jordan makes because it takes away his power. Sam values *power*. Let me explain:
He tipped his hand when he said in one of your clip videos, that he wants the small groups (individuals) to get out of the way of collectivist progress. He's a psycopath. (seriously). If you don't believe that people (individuals) have inherent value, the value people provide is what they offer to the collective (yourself). It's tyrannical, it values the opposite of the individual.
People like Sam believe that human value is subjective and is based on what they offer them (what they offer the collectivist structure). Sam is literally biased towards the spirit of communism that Peterson warns about but Peterson doesn't see this.
The question to ask people is this: Do you believe all people have inherent value?
If the answer is yes: then all of those people have the same sense of right and wrong, the same sense of meaning (bringing value to all people) and have the same ideal (even though people have different ideas of what the ideal is, ultimately, because there is an objective right way to be, all people who answer yes, strive to find that ideal through experience.) the ideal being essentially something like Christ or a Christ-force (a life giving force).
If the answer is no: then all of those people have the same sense of right and wrong, the same sense of meaning (bringing value to themselves) and have the same ideal which is essentially the maximal tyrant (a life taking force).
Because true athiests, like Sam, don't believe people have inherent value, because they don't believe there can be a super-characteristic like inherent value in a world that has no supercharacteristics, what becomes moral is, "what is best for the most amount of people." Which is collectivist and might makes right (tyrannical) thinking.
The people who value the individual value essentially Christ-force / liberty (the maximal expression of their values)
The people who value themselves value essentially Satanic-force / tyranny (the maximal expression of their values)
Sam isn't engaging with Peterson's arguments because he's not interested in intellectual honesty; he's interested in power. That's his inherent bias (pyschopathy).
Paul, I just watched your video on you tube and enjoyed every single time you repeated "Sam's not listening."
I have a lot of respect for S.H. and for what he says his intentions are. I am a practitioner of meditation and "post meditation" (meaning everything that goes on off the cushion) as taught to me in a Tibetan Buddhist style or system. A long time ago I was briefly interested in the new atheists but the debate game quickly seemed tedious, boring and pointless. Years later when he launched his podcast and posted two long discussions with Joseph Goldstein I was newly optimistic about S.H.'s potential to bring the ideas to his, even then, bigger audience. I listened to his podcast episodes for a while until S.H.'s communication habits once again appeared to me to become an obstacle. I can't recall every moment or every guest it arose with, though his impasse with Ezra Klein as well as the on stage dead end discussion about "truth" with JBP, stand out for me. What could have been opportunities for growth and deeper understanding looked like SH feeling frustrated over not making a point or victorious over making a point. Either way, he did not seem to be listening.
For as many times as SH has said he is dedicated to intellectual honesty and does not wish to be wrong for a minute longer than is necessary, it would appear that SH has unacknowledged limitations in his communication abilities - or blind spots. Is it possible he's somewhere on the spectrum, high functioning obviously, but not very good at reading the signals of others and easily fixated on being correct?
In general I find him to be a rather poor translator of the buddhist teachings on kindness and compassion for us Westerners. He exhibits a lack of understanding of what the Buddha meant by the term suffering and what the goal of a meditation practice is. (To alleviate suffering, yes, of course, but he had better refresh his grasp of the meaning of the word).
Anyway, thanks again for your insightful listening to these ongoing evolutions in the dialogues in this corner of the internet. I love it!
I hadn’t realized it before you mentioned it but you are right. Sam is not listening. This is true of him generally speaking. IMHO He does not enter into a conversation in good faith or just fails to engage in a dialogue the same way many others do. He is not playing a game. He is out to win. One thing I did notice that was slightly different about his demeanor this time was that he seemed to enter this conversation knowing he had won. It’s like they are talking past one another. It’s like Jordan throws the ball to Sam and Sam just lets it go past him only to keep saying whatever point he was trying to make. There is no ebb and flow. Because of that it ends up being a rather two dimensional conversation that lacks any depth.
Paul. Sam doesn't get it because he *can't* get it. His whole philosophy, his whole belief, is biased towards not seeing inherent value in the individual. He can't concede any points Jordan makes because it takes away his power. Sam values *power*. Let me explain:
He tipped his hand when he said in one of your clip videos, that he wants the small groups (individuals) to get out of the way of collectivist progress. He's a psycopath. (seriously). If you don't believe that people (individuals) have inherent value, the value people provide is what they offer to the collective (yourself). It's tyrannical, it values the opposite of the individual.
People like Sam believe that human value is subjective and is based on what they offer them (what they offer the collectivist structure). Sam is literally biased towards the spirit of communism that Peterson warns about but Peterson doesn't see this.
The question to ask people is this: Do you believe all people have inherent value?
If the answer is yes: then all of those people have the same sense of right and wrong, the same sense of meaning (bringing value to all people) and have the same ideal (even though people have different ideas of what the ideal is, ultimately, because there is an objective right way to be, all people who answer yes, strive to find that ideal through experience.) the ideal being essentially something like Christ or a Christ-force (a life giving force).
If the answer is no: then all of those people have the same sense of right and wrong, the same sense of meaning (bringing value to themselves) and have the same ideal which is essentially the maximal tyrant (a life taking force).
Because true athiests, like Sam, don't believe people have inherent value, because they don't believe there can be a super-characteristic like inherent value in a world that has no supercharacteristics, what becomes moral is, "what is best for the most amount of people." Which is collectivist and might makes right (tyrannical) thinking.
The people who value the individual value essentially Christ-force / liberty (the maximal expression of their values)
The people who value themselves value essentially Satanic-force / tyranny (the maximal expression of their values)
Sam isn't engaging with Peterson's arguments because he's not interested in intellectual honesty; he's interested in power. That's his inherent bias (pyschopathy).
Paul, I just watched your video on you tube and enjoyed every single time you repeated "Sam's not listening."
I have a lot of respect for S.H. and for what he says his intentions are. I am a practitioner of meditation and "post meditation" (meaning everything that goes on off the cushion) as taught to me in a Tibetan Buddhist style or system. A long time ago I was briefly interested in the new atheists but the debate game quickly seemed tedious, boring and pointless. Years later when he launched his podcast and posted two long discussions with Joseph Goldstein I was newly optimistic about S.H.'s potential to bring the ideas to his, even then, bigger audience. I listened to his podcast episodes for a while until S.H.'s communication habits once again appeared to me to become an obstacle. I can't recall every moment or every guest it arose with, though his impasse with Ezra Klein as well as the on stage dead end discussion about "truth" with JBP, stand out for me. What could have been opportunities for growth and deeper understanding looked like SH feeling frustrated over not making a point or victorious over making a point. Either way, he did not seem to be listening.
For as many times as SH has said he is dedicated to intellectual honesty and does not wish to be wrong for a minute longer than is necessary, it would appear that SH has unacknowledged limitations in his communication abilities - or blind spots. Is it possible he's somewhere on the spectrum, high functioning obviously, but not very good at reading the signals of others and easily fixated on being correct?
In general I find him to be a rather poor translator of the buddhist teachings on kindness and compassion for us Westerners. He exhibits a lack of understanding of what the Buddha meant by the term suffering and what the goal of a meditation practice is. (To alleviate suffering, yes, of course, but he had better refresh his grasp of the meaning of the word).
Anyway, thanks again for your insightful listening to these ongoing evolutions in the dialogues in this corner of the internet. I love it!