Bonus: Yelling at Sam Harris

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:04 Clip: You're listening to Serious Inquiries Only.

0:00:30 Thomas: Okay, fuck Sam Harris! I'm just dying right off the bat. So, I'm so glad you're willing to come on and do a bonus episode with me where I yell about Sam Harris and maybe let you talk a little bit. We'll see. I'm not sure yet.

0:00:32 Lindsey: Fuck Sam Harris. Fuck that guy. Nah, that sounds perfect.

0:00:44 Thomas: I have a lot of yelling to do. Thank you for joining me. Yeah, this, I, so this episode, back "Can We Pull Back from the Brink," you know, I had listened to it at the time and I started like working on it, was one of those things where I was like, all right, you know, this is mid COVID this is a lot going on, you know, mentally for me. I bet I, you know, this, I, there's a lot happening here. And back at that time, I listened to and I was, I should do a response to of this, I start writing stuff down and then very quickly I'm like, there's too much, there's

0:00:44 Lindsey: It's too much.

0:01:18 Thomas: Just too much. And then my mind is like, yeah, you got your kids, you got you COVID, you got all the stuff to do, other podcast, uh, you know, and I kind of got overwhelmed. I was like, I just can't, the number of things you'd have to like respond to, look up, whatever, you know, I, I just was like, in the end I was like, okay, everyone knows Sam Harris is a piece of shit, right? Anyway, like everyone who listens to of me knows that. I don't need to do this. But then when, uh, finally, you know, we, we got together and wanted to do the debunking of those papers, which is excellent, I was like, okay, I'll go back and listen to this episode.

0:01:52 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:01:52 Thomas: So I've written some notes. Um, I basically just kind of, as I was going through the episode, wrote down some stuff and it, I mean, it's maddening. First off Lindsey, I think we need to start with 10 minutes about how, look, this is, I'm terrified to talk Right now, I'm I'm tired. People are so scared. They can't even say their opinions. No, they'll be killed.

0:02:09 Lindsey: Oh, yeah. Can't even say. Yeah. That was the worst.

0:02:15 Thomas: They'll be executed by a firing squad, especially Sam Harris, white man who has his own billion dollar podcast that depends in no way on anyone else but him. And like, you know, like his audience already knows that he is an asshole who, you know, uh, spreads myths about race and all this stuff. They're already, it's priced in. There's nothing that Sam Harris is going to say about police violence. That's going to do anything to him. It's the weird, he spends 10 minutes. I'm terrified. I thought about, I wouldn't even do this episode. It's too scary. I, everyone can't even talk. You can't Even say anything without, Oh, shut up.

0:02:17 Lindsey: In the streets. Yes.

0:02:35 Lindsey: He's been, he's been chilled.

0:02:44 Lindsey: Nope. He's spent the last several years specifically building an audience that would like this episode. He's the last person to be concerned.

0:02:59 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's part of the fucking victim narrative 24-7 conservatives. And that this is what signals to me that he's among this crowd and getting information from this crowd because all it is all day is white victimhood about how you can't say anything because you're going to get in trouble all the time. Meanwhile, he has a zillion dollars, a giant massive podcast that is in no danger of getting in trouble from saying stuff. In fact, as you say, I mean, this is the audience he has.

0:03:11 Lindsey: Mm-hmm.

0:03:31 Lindsey: He probably got more subscribers after that episode.

0:03:32 Thomas: God, this is so he does this. I'm going to go through my notes and, you know, we'll see. We'll see what we get to. But, you know, yeah, I'm so scared to tell my secret truth is the first 10 minutes or so. I'm just so scared. And then it's like, oh, social media. That's the issue here. We and over the course of this, I want to I want want to outline, I want to kind of illustrate Sam Harris's theory of mind of protesters is atrocious. It's, it's so telling, like the, maybe the most racist thing about this podcast episode of Sam Harris is, is if you take all of what he says and construct what, and try to reconstruct what he thinks a protester, a Black Lives Matter protester is, it's, it's so condescending. It's so insulting. They're all idiots.

0:03:47 Lindsey: Uh-huh.

0:04:23 Lindsey: Condescending Is the only word

0:04:24 Thomas: Yeah. Who just are out there for wrong reasons. And so, and then by the way, he started off and it's, I kind of wish I had done the episode at the time because he starts off making a bunch of claims about how, hey, we're in the middle of COVID and these protests are going to be great for Trump and he's going to win the election because of these protests. And he, and he gave the shy Trump voter thing. And I, at the Time, and so this has been complicated now in the, in light of the election, because yes, it's true. The polls were off yet yet again. But no, it's not the shy Trump voter. That isn't, there's no such thing as a Trump voter. If you've met a fucking Trump voter, they're not afraid to tell you that they support Trump. In fact, they fly 80 Trump flags on their stupid truck with the Blue Lives Matter flag as well in on it. They're not,

0:04:24 Lindsey: Yeah. Oh. Yeah. And Run

0:05:09 Thomas: That's not a shy.

0:05:09 Lindsey: Biden Off the road. No.

0:05:10 Thomas: So already It signals to me, okay, you didn't actually look into what happened in 2016. It wasn't a shy Trump voter. Yes, it is true that Trump voters, maybe people who support Trump are not responding to survey calls as much, but they're not, it's not because they're answering the phone call and saying, oh yeah, I support Biden because they are scared of saying, that's not it. It's not a shy Trump voter, it's that when you're a group of people who has been told by your demagogue that that all institutions are bad and journalists are evil and all that. You're not going to answer your phone. You're going to participate in a survey, which is much different than than what he says, which is, well, the polling is good for Biden, but I don't trust it because of shy Trump voters. Not now. Not that's not what happened, but whatever.

0:05:11 Lindsey: No.

0:05:56 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:05:57 Thomas: It's a minor point now because, you know, it is true that the polls were a bit off, but for a slightly different reason.

0:06:05 Thomas: And also, here's quote. Trump has made it seem like white supremacy was ascendant. I love that you mean the white supremacist in the White House who has fucking had Steve Bannon in there who had Stephen Miller doing you know like the most evil policies regarding immigration all that that oh yeah it only seems yeah only seems like white supremacy is ascendant. God. And then by the way, another quote.

0:06:12 Lindsey: Yeah. It's An illusion. Yeah, I Yeah. Yeah.

0:06:33 Thomas: Oh, just imagine, because he spends the first part, like, oh, it's, it's the protests. They're going to be so bad. Like, and he, he goes to great pains to actually talk about, this is what's so, it's simultaneously. It's, it's, I guess, better than nothing, but also frustrating about Sam Harris is multiple times during this, he'll talk about real problems. He'll say, look at the wealth inequality, which is something that, by the way, he's been on for a long time. I actually really respected that about him back in like, I don't know, 2012. He had like just his blog on his website. And one of the things he wrote about was like, check out this wealth inequality, this isn't good, we can't have this. I was like, wow, yeah, good point. And even he'll he'll go ahead, yeah.

0:06:54 Lindsey: No.

0:07:11 Lindsey: He He Referenced Like a bunch of systemic stuff In the episode, but then, but then the point is that like he's focusing all his attention on this bigger problem of seeing racism where it isn't. It's just, it's totally, yeah, the emphasis is all wrong and it's very telling, I think, that he released this, like, how long after George Floyd was that? It wasn't that long.

0:07:14 Thomas: Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I was right, right, right around it and he's like, oh, this is just, we're, we're on the brink of collapse, blah, blah, and I also pulled another quote where he said, just think of what an act of domestic terrorism would do politically, and I'm thinking like, I'm not entirely sure what he meant there, but like Kyle Rittenhouse was after this. And what did that do? Did that like we have domestic terrorism, dude, all the time. It's just not the kind you're thinking of. It's the kind perpetrated by white people who think white people are a persecuted minority, essentially.

0:07:33 Lindsey: Right after. Yeah.

0:07:51 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:08:05 Lindsey: Yeah, that reminds me. Oh, I got a quote. I got to quote that I wrote down. Quote, hashtag all lives matter in the, I'm going to try to do a Sam Harris voice, in the current environment is being read as a naked declaration of white supremacy.

0:08:07 Thomas: Sure, sure.

0:08:18 Thomas: That's pretty good. That's that's pretty good impression.

0:08:21 Lindsey: That's, that's how weird this moment is. Close quote. How The fuck ignorant has he become? Seriously, this used to be one of the things that I this is, this is why I started following Sam Harris in the first place. It always seemed like he was doing his research and trying to, at least when he disagreed with things, not respond to straw men. Nothing in this episode indicated that he knew anything about what he was talking about. Yeah.

0:08:23 Thomas: Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah.

0:08:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, he has he he has used your study that you already showed, you know, not not only was it retracted the study you talked about in the last episode, he's used that one thing to construct an entire fucking narrative that's just so out of touch. And part of his main thesis here is about the fact that, look, he is a white man, but that shouldn't matter. Shouldn't matter that he's white guy. It doesn't matter the color of skin. And it's like, yeah, yes and no, my dude. Yes and no. It's not that what you're saying is wrong because a white person is saying it.

It's that you're wrong about this whole thing, and it's connected to the fact that you are a white person. I will give specific examples later on. One last thing on these protests, which he's so up in arms about. I can't believe these protests because coronavirus, coronavirus. I think even Even back in June, we knew this was not a fucking problem, but he says here, these are rough quotes. I typed them, you know, as I'm going, but hopefully I captured the spirit of them. This is a mortifying piece of hypocrisy, especially since the pandemic has hit the African-American community the most. How many people will these protests kill?

0:09:04 Lindsey: Oh, Yes, Yeah,

0:10:00 Thomas: He says, because he's anticipating that it's going to spread the virus. Well, unlike a bunch of fucking idiots who support Trump, Black Lives Matter protesters protesters tend to actually believe in science overwhelmingly, and it's outdoors, it's ventilated, many of them wear masks, and wouldn't you know it, if you Google it right now, if you look at the data, it doesn't seem as though any significant virus spread was caused by these protests.

0:10:15 Lindsey: It's not an event Yep. Yep.

0:10:23 Thomas: So that's, so that fake concern is obviously a fake concern, and probably we knew that then, but, you know, I was a little worried, like, oh, shoot, is this going to spread the virus? Don't blame him for being worried about that, but didn't turn out to be the case, so don't worry. That should be a load off your mind, Sam Harris. And then, okay, I some more notes on these conversations are so dangerous. I'm just trying to have conversations more dangerous. Guys, just so, so dangerous what we're doing right now. Lindsay is so dangerous, it's dangerous.

0:10:23 Lindsey: Not a super spreading event, sure. Yeah. Super dangerous. Yeah.

0:10:50 Thomas: We're going to be probably killed for how trying to have a conversation because the radical left doesn't allow it.

0:10:51 Lindsey: I dead already Yeah.

0:10:56 Thomas: Yeah. And then, okay, here, this is, so here's, here's some, here is where we get to, uh, again, I've a lot of criticism about this, but, but here's quote, quote, "Some people are protesting for reasons I defend." OK, how the fuck do you know who is protesting for what? This is the biggest thing that drives me nuts about this stupid episode. He comes up. Here's another quote, slightly later. "It seems to me," he says, "it seems to be that most of these protesters are protesting on the basis of identity, identity politics." And he also said another quote, quote, "Now, of course, we need police reform," end quote.

So, here's the problem, we need, let me lay it out. Sam Harris agrees we need policy reform. Some of the people are protesting for reasons he defends, but then other people, probably not, because I believe maybe they're not protesting for the right reasons. Like, here's what I want to tell you. How is fucking police reform going to happen? You've already agreed that we need police reform. How is that going to happened? Are we one or two, um, episodes of the Waking Up podcast away from police reform happening? Is that how it's going to have, if we have a calm conversation about it, is that how it's gonna happen? Or is it going to be because we fucking protest?

0:11:46 Lindsey: Yes.

0:11:56 Lindsey: I think I had this, I had this thought when I listened to it, that the thing he objects to is people protesting on the basis of anecdotal evidence. So if we were to all get riled up about studies that actually show, you know, in really systematic ways that there are anti-black, he'd probably be all for that. I think. Right, being

0:12:34 Thomas: Yeah, here's exactly. And so he's, so he's already granted wealth inequality is granted, uh, you know, all the, all these things. So here's the theory of mind of, of the protester, according to Sam Harris, it's, and again we've, we've granted that, uh, you know, or in his opinion race doesn't matter. I'm gonna tell you why it actually does matter and why he's wrong because of his race. Essentially, in his experience, it's not necessarily his race per se, but it's like his experience as a white man has, has shielded him from what's really happening here. So what Sam Harrison thinks is happening, here's, here's this, and this is not a straw man. I assure you, listen to the fucking thing. Now, it may be put in a, I might put this in a way that's not going to be entirely flattering to Sam Harris, but it is essentially what he believes, in what he's saying, if you actually take it to its logical conclusion.

0:13:28 Thomas: So, what he thinks is happening is that there's a bunch of people, everybody's fine going about their daily lives, there isn't really much of a problem with racism at all, we're all pretty much okay, except for the things he already grants, but apparently they're not a big enough deal to be protesting about, according to him, like, or are they? It's unclear, because again, some of the protests are good, but overall he hates the protests, it's very mealy-mouthed. But anyway, uh, but then here's what happens, Lindsay, what happens is we see a video of a police killing of a black man. And then because of social media and people, you know, like not putting proper context on things or making assumptions or whatever, we then all, All of us in the country then think, oh no, police are killing black men, uh, you know, without cause, and it must be, and furthermore, according to him, we must think it happens all the time, like it's every day, every black man or something.

And because of those incorrect assumptions that again, not all the protesters apparently have, but enough of them for him to be just whining about protests for an entire episode, we then start protesting just on the basis of these videos, like that's it, it's just, "I saw this video of George Floyd, now I'm gonna go protest," and I'm doing it for the wrong reasons, um, except for some of them, apparently, according to Sam Harris, aren't doing it for the wrong reasons, but, but that's the bulk, that's the mind of the protester, that's the mind of Black Lives Matter, we, we use

0:14:08 Lindsey: Deranged. Yeah.

0:14:53 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah.

0:14:53 Thomas: This one data point, which is a video, that's all we know, because we're idiots, apparently, and we see that we're like, there must be just an epidemic of black men being killed by cops, and then we go yell and protest and we don't listen to what he has, is the actual evidence he has, the actual numbers, he's got the actual studies, side note that you've already debunked. Yes, retracted studies that show actually, actually it's a well, actually study. Well, if anything, white people are killed more. You've already talked about why this should be debunked.

0:14:53 Lindsey: He does retracted studies. Yeah, and These are just the facts. Just the facts, asshole.

0:15:25 Thomas: Yeah, just the facts. And so everybody is wrong. And furthermore, they are unwilling to hear the secret facts that only white man Sam Harris has, except unless you're, by the way, the only people who can have a proper conversation about this are his, I don't know, four or five examples of black men who are, you know, hold these, was it Thomas Chatterton Williams and fucking, and by the way, I love this Coleman Hughes too. Like Coleman Hughes is like an undergrad or something, or like he's like a grad student maybe, but because he, he, uh, you know, wrote some opinions for Quillette about how actually there's no racism. All of a sudden he's a form, you Know, he's, he'S like a Nobel prize winning expert in the, in the Republican community, even though he's a fucking grad student, no offense to grad students, but it's amazing how high up the ranks in certain segments of the society you can go, i.e. in the conservative media ecosystem, how, how high you can grow, how fast, if you are a black person willing to say that race isn't a problem.

0:15:43 Lindsey: Yeah, Oh,

0:16:31 Thomas: I don't know. I apologize. I do not know why you are here for this. I should let you talk more. You had your turn with the science. Now it is time for the yelling.

0:16:36 Lindsey: Gee, thanks, man. Yeah, Yeah, so I thought, I thought when the way you started that that particular point, I thought you were going to talk about when he was like talking about his collisions with the cops and how he's white so he didn't have to worry, and, and like for a minute there, he had us going about, you know, he was like, "And this makes me lucky, if I were, if I was black, you know, probably more encounters." And I was like, oh, okay, maybe he's, maybe he's making a point. And then he follows that up with, "If I were black, I probably would have seen those interactions as racist, even though they weren't." Wow. That's an interesting way to finish that sentence.

0:17:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. He does. He he does a good job. Here's what he's good at. He's good at trying to throw as many little I don't know what you would call it. Little concessions or signals like, oh, here, I actually am OK with, you know, I'm like I'm woke a little bit, you Know, even though he would never say that. But like he tries to throw these little fig leaves of wokeness like, Oh, yeah, white privilege. The part of the white privilege is I don't have to see the cops a lot because, you know, my people don't commit crime, essentially. And you're like, that's, well.

0:17:24 Lindsey: Oh my God.

0:17:46 Lindsey: Yeah. Okay, wait, can I compare him to Keith now? Is that cool or should I not? Because because it's that maneuver that I think is so much like Keith, because throughout the episode there's just like this maddening, like, like just ricocheting between these painfully ignorant and racist statements, and then he'll, he'll like immediately move to, but I'm, you know, I'm acknowledging that racism is still a very real issue, I never say that it wasn't a real issue, and systemic, recently doesn't use that word, but he talks about things that are essentially systemic racism, um, and then it goes right back in to the, the painful ignorant racist statements, now that he's credentialed, like, like you said, like, that yeah, he's woke, just

0:17:48 Thomas: Oh, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Absolutely. Yes. Mm hmm. Right.

0:18:22 Lindsey: Not in those terms, and it like, it's so, reminded, this hit me the last time I listened to it, God, I've listened to this episode too many times, so stupid, uh, it's like six hours of my life that I've devoted to this fucking Sam Harris episode

0:18:32 Thomas: Oh, my God. I hope you're listening at like at least one point five X, because actually one point six sounds like a normal person. He's a slow talker.

0:18:41 Thomas: So I listen to one point seven X and I don't notice that it's like like it sounds normal.

0:18:41 Lindsey: Um he's a very slow talker yeah, he sounds like a normal person. Yeah. But yeah yeah, so this last time, because now I've watched all the, thou, and the, the other one, what's called, Seduce produced and and like, I'm listening to him do this and I'm like, holy shit, this is exactly what Keith did at those like MRA type meetings that he had, yeah

0:18:47 Thomas: Yeah. Oh God. Yeah, we got seduced. We got to talk about that.

0:19:02 Thomas: Yeah. Specifically the part, yeah, you brought this up and I was going to do an example for you. Lindsay, I need you to notice, notice your feelings right now. Notice your mind. I'm going to say, I'm gonna, I're going to say some things. I want you to know, I your reactions, you know, because reaction, your emotions, Lindsay, they don't, they don't signal that I'm wrong. They don't really tell you. Yeah. So I'll give you an example, but notice your feelings.

0:19:10 Lindsey: Oh shit fucking piece of shit, okay I'm noticing oh oh really okay yeah

0:19:28 Thomas: It might be really cool to eat a baby. Now notice, I bet you just had, I bet she just had a big negative reaction to that, Lindsay. I bet when I said it might be cool to heat a baby, you probably had this feeling of like, oh, well, how gross you white man talking about eating a baby?

0:19:32 Lindsey: Wait wait I did I did that's exactly, how

0:19:44 Thomas: That feeling is not an argument, Lindsay, it's not an argument, so therefore I guess, ipso facto, eating babies is cool, God, it's so infuriating, it's condescending, you are right that that is exactly like Keith, that part where he's like, when I say I'm gonna reveal my secret truth, that actually black people aren't, you know, disproportionately killed or whatever, according to this, again, redacted paper that's now retracted, rather, retracted paper, uh, I'm going to reveal my super tooth, and I bet you're going to have, have a negative reaction, but it's okay, you know, that's not really an argument, that's just the woke people who have conditioned you via social pressure to feel these things, it's like, oh no, or maybe you're just fucking wrong, you asshole, and that when somebody is wrong in a racist way, you both know that they're wrong in an irrational way, but also you're

0:19:44 Lindsey: I felt shit I thought it was an argument, I'm convinced yeah yeah

0:20:33 Thomas: Really reacting emotionally to the fact that they are an insufferable asshole, God, both those things can be true, you insufferable asshole, Jesus, ah, yes absolutely absolutely yes and and okay so that, that's what his theory, again, that's his theory of the protesters, that we're all, everything's fine, we wouldn't be protesting at all but for this video, and this is what he got, yeah

0:20:34 Lindsey: It makes you mad and you're like fuck you Sam Harris yeah it's the best, it's, I think that that is gaslighting, right, like yeah yeah that's gaslight yeah, yeah couldn't be, that this is just like a really visceral

0:21:14 Thomas: Yeah

0:21:14 Lindsey: Example that kind of got everybody motivated, and that we all knew that this was a problem for a long time, or at least some of us did, and then maybe that's motivating it.

0:21:22 Thomas: And And he, he already, again, it's so confusing because he already said, and I have another bullet point here where it's essentially protests are fine, but the problem is they're based on confusion. So he says like, he's like, protests are good. You know, you have right to protest is great. He even brings up the Trump, like, you know, he, Trump cleared out the protesters in front of the church and that wasn't good. And protests are Good. But again, not if they're not exactly, it'S like, if we're all out there protesting, Lindsay, and we're All protesting for, you Know, police reform, police, reform, police reform, defund the police, whatever. Apparently, if we don't all exactly agree on precisely what policy measures need to take place, then it's invalid and we got to fucking go home. Then it's a waste

0:21:24 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, no, I,

0:22:05 Thomas: Of time.

0:22:05 Lindsey: Wasn't it worse than that? Because I, I wrote down something about the defund the police thing, and I remember him saying, like, you know, what imbecile would think that police should be less well-trained? I'm totally on board with, like、 know,, mental health professionals funding them more and not having cops do jobs they aren't trained to do.

0:22:17 Thomas: Actually, I don't think he said that. Did he say that? That might've been the second episode because I didn't hear him say that. I heard him say the first thing you're saying, but I don't remember him saying that we ought to have mental health professionals because I specifically was going to say that he didn't say that, but, oh, okay.

0:22:27 Lindsey: I, okay, no,, he did it, he, no. He did, he did say that at some point, um, yeah.

0:22:41 Thomas: Sorry. I must've missed it.

0:22:41 Lindsey: He talked about defund the police at two different points though, so it's, it's buried in a lot of shit but, um, but yeah, and then and then yeah, it's a completely absurd position that police should not be, well, what, who is saying that, who is seeing that other than his friends that call themselves classical liberals and actually hate black people. So fucking stupid, retracted.

0:22:45 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yep. That's exactly it. It's, it's as though, look, the way society, this is what drives me nuts is again, he has such a problem with these protests. He's so concerned about these protests, he's so concern about them, despite the fact that again, some people might be protesting for the right reasons. He has no fucking way of knowing who is protesting. We need, do we need, does he have to personally verify the motivations of every protester for it to be an okay protest? And the burden he's putting, he puts an overwhelming burden on just everyday folk who are fed up with this bullshit and want to protest it. He puts all the burden, they apparently need to be, you know, well-researched, they got to have all these policy papers, they gotta know their their white papers and their statistics.

0:23:49 Thomas: And by the way, again, the paper he references has been retracted. So he's the fucking asshole who doesn't have the right data. But again, assuming that he did, he's putting all this pressure on a mass of people and not on politicians, police unions, all these different people who actually have power to take the data, to take this civic response and translate it into action. That's where the fucking burden should be. And it's so tiresome. It's such a Fox News mentality to zoom in on the, oh, look at this protester. Oh, they just broke a window. Whole thing must be bullshit then or something. It's like, fuck you.

0:23:54 Lindsey: Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

0:24:30 Lindsey: That, that was annoying too. He kept, he kept moving back, back to like, and this is just, it just, focusing on the, you know, destruction of property thing, as though, like, you know, this outweighs, like, the violence that has been done to the black community for forever.

0:24:39 Thomas: Yeah, right. Oh, I have that one written down too. He's like all looters and looters or whatever. Like, dude, you're going to hold all of Democrats or the left or whatever accountable to looters? To looters. By the way, plenty of footage over the course of all of those protests and all that of actually white people starting the looting or white people, uh, starting the violence to try to poison the well, to make it look like the protests were violence, violent, because it's so easy to do because they know that the right wing media will jump on that, and then it'll be presented as, look at these violent antifa thugs, blah, blah, blah, it's not, blah, blah, but putting

0:24:43 Lindsey: Yeah. Constantly yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, exactly. Oh,

0:25:20 Thomas: All the burden on the masses of people, by the way, he's already acknowledged the atrocious income inequality, wealth inequality, and the fact that like that, like, what kind of impact that might have, well, you know what, imagine if you have a population that's just been beaten down by racist policy after racist policy, over-policed, over incarcerated to the point where, you know, many, so many black men are just have disappeared from life, like black fathers, black husbands, because they're in, they've been jailed because they've been whatever. And yeah, same here. And you're going to put the burden on that oppressed group of people to what perfectly strictly for like, okay, this protest needs to be just, they got to publish a Magna Carta or something of detailed policy proposals. And then they have to protest in exactly the right way or else it can't be heard or it's invalid or blah, blah, bla, blah. It's such a stupid fucking way to put the burden. And he does it again.

When we talk about looters or violence, oh, there's the police. He talks about the police backlash. You know, one of the good things to come out of of these protests back in June was newspapers and, uh, newspaper, you know, fucking media. I know it's not really newspapers anymore, but yeah, online sources of media.

0:25:52 Lindsey: I got a thing I need to remember about that, oh,

0:26:45 Thomas: They finally wrote the headlines, how they should be written, which is police erupt in violence. And that was one of the good things that happened. Police erupted by Sam Harris presents it as, well, yeah, what are you going to do? They got the, they're being, you Know, they, he, he sort of excuses the cop a little little bit. And one of the major problems with all of this is, and it goes, and whether we're talking about the protests or whether we'RE talking about just daily police interactions, we, he is putting the burden on the person being arrested or whatever protesting and not the person whose job, who gets paid. Their job is to try to manage these things.

0:27:02 Lindsey: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:24 Thomas: Okay. Sorry. I'll let you you talk, what was the thing you remember, yeah.

0:27:25 Lindsey: I mean that that I Don't, I want to respond to that, that first, though, because, like, I guess we mentioned this for a second on the, on the other episode, but, um, but yeah, like, his, that was one of the most infuriating moments in his episode for me was when he was like just patiently explaining to these imbeciles in Black Lives Matter, right, or no, just black people, black Americans who just don't understand that there's a correct way to interact with police, police officers, like, how does he, how does he not hear himself when he says shit like that?

I mean, first of all, like, I don't even know, that I doubt that that's like a significant proportion what's going on, but like the fact that that's where his emphasis is, I think just says fucking everything. But no, so you were talking about the, you know, the fact that mass incorporation and, you know, father absence because of that, it's just, that, you know, financial, all that stuff. So in the second episode where he has the guest on, this, talking about, about these things, he specifically talks about those issues and makes the claim that, like, no, those are the, the effects of those things are too far removed to be considered racism.

0:27:49 Thomas: Mm-hmm yeah, yeah, he does

0:28:33 Lindsey: Yes. So I'm not telling you to listen to that episode, but, like, there, there were, I'm remembering now that there were some additional inflammatory things you

0:28:33 Thomas: Oh my god. Well we'll see if people enjoy a whole episode of me yelling, and if they really, really do, I'll listen to that one and then I can yell again, but I don't know, yeah.

0:28:49 Lindsey: Heard it, folks, there you go.

0:28:51 Thomas: Let me know in the fucking Facebook group or something, I don't, yeah.

0:28:51 Lindsey: Yeah It's the worst, yeah, because that to me, like, that's, that's most of it, right, just the years of fucking

0:29:02 Thomas: Well that's, that's the problem, that's why it's systemic. Yeah, I said in the last it it's a big thing and it's really hard. It's easy if you're an asshole to try to focus in on one thing and say, look, was this one thing direct interpersonal racism? Maybe not. Therefore, cancel the protests.

0:29:07 Lindsey: Yeah because it happened to a white person once, yeah.

0:29:26 Thomas: Yeah, he even I have to go into this, he, this is the part where he says, now turn off, this is, sorry, this is what I wrote, I don't know if this will be, maybe funny if anybody listened to the episode, my bullet point here is turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream, because he goes into this thing about, like, listen to your mind, it's just, as I say this, you're gonna, uh, you know, you're going to have a reaction, you get emotional reaction, he goes under that whole gaslighting thing, and I just was like, turn Off, your mind, relax and float downstream.

0:29:27 Lindsey: Mm-hmm I I punched my cat immediately after this it was the worst, I

0:29:58 Thomas: Yeah. I need to put on, what is that revolver? No, that's a, what does that? No. That's Sergeant Pepper. Yeah, the end of Sergeant Pepper there, right? No is that Revolver? Fuck now I'm blanking. Anyway, it's that, uh, that's one of my favorite, uh, Beatles albums and I can't remember what it is. So that's the bad sign. I'm too, I'm too, uh I'm too agitated.

0:30:07 Lindsey: Don't know.

0:30:16 Lindsey: Yep.

0:30:17 Thomas: That why, but anyway, when he does the turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream into my fucking racism, uh, then he goes, like, does the killing of, of, this is a quote, does the killing of Floyd prove we have a problem of racism, does it even suggest it, and, and so here's, here's this, here's the thing, if you, there is an example of a white person who was killed by cops in a similar manner, and it And he says the person's name 400 times, I can't remember the person, saying and therefore, and, and here's how he breaks down the George Floyd killing, do you think that, uh, fucking officer, was it Chauvin, god, assholes.

0:30:17 Lindsey: Let's all go home, yeah.

0:30:55 Lindsey: Maybe

0:30:55 Thomas: Do you think that he went into that thinking, I want to, I, a white cop, want to kill a black person, do you thinking when, oh no, well, I've got other evidence, uh, there, there's also cops who did the exact same thing in this other situation to a white guy, therefore, ipso fatso, uh, it, this one thing doesn't mean that there's racism, and so therefore the whole, and in his mind this matters for some reason because the whole protest, in his mind, all the protesters came out that day because of this one video, like, there wouldn't have been any other, like, if it weren't for this one vídeo, everybody would just been sitting at home happy, no not a care in the world, because racism is pretend in his mind, except when it's not, yeah.

0:31:24 Lindsey: I I found that incredible. Incredible. Yeah.

0:31:49 Lindsey: Yes. So that, but also the fact that it happened to a white person does not mean that race wasn't a factor when it happens to a fucking black person. It is different. The fact that he's like trying to be like, so therefore it couldn't be a factor if we had exactly the same case and he had been a black person, it couldn'T have been a factor because what are you talking about? He has to know that's not true. He has TO, he has TO know that. I don't know.

0:32:16 Thomas: I just don't fucking care, and again, I think I've already said this, do you think George Floyd gave a shit whether or not Derrick Chauvin had individual personal racism? Do you think it's like, as you're killing me, hey, are you killing me for racism or not, I just need to know as I'm fucking dying. God, doesn't matter, dude.

0:32:27 Lindsey: You're right. Right. That is, that is the bigger point. No, Well, but it does. I mean, that's the problem with this fucking episode is that there are so many layers of badness to every statement that he makes, because interpersonal racism, I agree, it's the systemic issues that are, that are more the problem in the vast majority of these cases. Those are the things that we ought to be focusing on. I totally get that. But also the, the claim that he's making to demonstrate that, like, interpersonal racism doesn't matter is also absurd. It's all bad. It's all bad.

0:33:03 Thomas: Yeah. His three pronged approach to disproving individual racism and police shootings is the, you know, here's an example of a white person being killed. And then the hypothetical, do you think officers shit bag wanted to be a murder and in broad daylight? And so that like, that's, that'S the logic that they, they, they do this all the time. Well, do YOU think he was being racist? Do you think how stupid would he be if he wanted to just racially execute someone in a racial murder in broad daylight, yeah, that and it's also like a complete disregard for human life, but but has nothing to do with race because there's examples of them doing that to white people, and also the other one is, hey, it turns out when you look at the data, um, non-white cops might shoot non-white people even more, slightly than than white people, well, was that, I, I think that may even be true, true, I, like, I honestly don't know, like, it may be the kid who cares, it doesn't matter.

0:33:23 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah except the police officers never face consequences for things, I mean, I know he did but exactly what except that, I was retracted, so okay. So from What from what I got from this, right, it could be true, but it's probably, it's possibly just like a spurious relationship because um, like a population, right, so in areas where there are more black cops, there's probably more, it's because the population has more black people, so you're going to get more of those encounters. That's at least what I got from the stuff that I was reading for this, but I haven't read every article on this.

0:34:09 Thomas: Okay okay yeah Here's, here's a quote, a quote. "I find it very unlikely that he was intending to kill George Floyd." Oh, okay, everything's fine, everybody, go home. He didn't mean it, he didn't mean to do it. Yeah.

0:34:33 Lindsey: Oh, cool. All right. Yeah. I feel better.

0:34:38 Thomas: Oh, god. And so here's the point, here's them, here's the main crux of the matter. No, no, Sam, this isn't all based on these fucking videos. It's not. And so, and he brings up the example. He's like, "Oh, I don't know any of the names of the white victims of police shootings." You know, that's, I agree with that. I agree that, okay, it's actually obviously true that more white people die by cop than black people because there are way more white people in the country. So you would expect that. And it's about the disproportionality. But it's also true that like, when a white person is killed by cops, it often doesn't really take off virally and all that.

That's true. That's not some secret sign of hypocrisy or like, or whatever. I here's, here's my theory about this. And, uh, you can tell me what you think. Um, it's about emotional resonance and it's all the other factors going on. You know, when, when you have the aforementioned wealth gap that Sam Harris already fucking agrees with and brought up multiple times, When you have white people with a tenth of the wealth, median wealth as as sorry, black people, the tenth of them eating wealth as white people and you have severe segregation, underfunded schools, you have over policing of black populations.

0:34:38 Lindsey: Yeah. Sure.

0:35:58 Thomas: Investigations, statistically, I've been trying to track this down. I cannot fucking find the statistics anywhere, but, but you know, it's, it goes, I think it's uncontroversially true. Like, I don't know that anyone would argue, even Sam Harris, that black people are encountering police more often. In fact, I Think it's key to his argument, which is like, oh, the disproportionality is because of the encounters, but You got over policing. You've got the idea that like, um, think about this. Uh, if you're another white person listening to this, think about the fact that like for mine, I'll just take my privilege, uh, existence. The only times I ever interact with police at all is if I like have a traffic violation, the, you know, two, three times in my life, I've had a traffic violence. That's my interaction with cops and that's highway patrol. That's an asshole who wants to write me a ticket.

That'S me who, yeah, I probably was going fucking and too fast or whatever. And I'm just like, yeah, I don't need a fucking ticket. Yeah, that's the extent of my interaction with police. You know why? Because I live in a nice suburb. I'm privileged. I am doing fine financially. And my kids will likely go to a good school. And that's all.

0:36:19 Lindsey: Yeah. Because they're criminals.

0:37:08 Thomas: And that is my life. And so if there were a news story about how a white person got killed by a cop or something, I would be like, oh, weird. There is no resonance to me. Because I'm not, I, I'm Not worried about, like, I- I'm not anticipating that Phoebe and Arlo are gonna spend every day getting pulled over by cops and stopped inappropriately and- and they might, you know, they aren't, are they gonna have friends who have weapons or do they have weapons, or they have dr- like, it's just not on my mind, cause I have an overabundance of privilege, whereas if you're black in this country and you're over-policed, and by the way for black men, it's like one out of three of them will be arrested sometime in their life or something, it's crazy, I'm trying to find that I know I've heard that somewhere, but it's

0:37:20 Lindsey: Or cops suck. Yeah.

0:37:36 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:51 Thomas: Something like that. Their interactions are way higher with police. If you look at the stats of just essentially blackmail disappearance, and that puts a number of things, so either being killed by police or being incarcerated or stuff like that, if you add it all up, it's something like one out of six, I just saw. Um, and again, I'm, I came having a hard time finding the right sources, but they're, they're there fucking find it. Uh, and anecdotally, it makes perfect sense. Like you add it all together. Um. Imagine how much more resonance that has. If you are, I don't know, a black parent, a Black child, a Back mother, a back father, whatever it is. And you see a story, uh, or you see video of a traffic stop where a cop is just just like, oh, I think he has a gun, bang, dead, you know, totally, that's going to fucking resonate because in your mind, you're like, Oh shit, this, I mean, this could happen to my child tomorrow. Of course, it's going resonate more.

0:38:45 Lindsey: Yeah. Exactly.

0:38:52 Thomas: And so that's why your experience is actually a factor. Sam Harris, it does matter that you're white. It absolutely matters. It matters that you haven't had the experience, and it makes it so painfully obvious in the way that he talks about these protests as though they're all because of one fucking video. Yeah.

0:39:11 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, there was a moment in this that made me think about exactly this issue in his episode. He's talking, he's like quoting somebody we saw in an interview or something, asking somebody who was, you know, supporting defund the police. And the person was like, well, what do I do if, you know, there are no police and someone's breaking into my house and I can't call the police? And the person responded like, Well, you know what? That right there is a statement of privilege, right? And like, clearly, yeah, clearly we know what they mean by that, right?

That like, you have the confidence in the police that are, you know, if you call them, they're going to protect you instead of like shooting you in the face, right. Like that's privilege. That's privilege. And Sam Harris hears this quote and says, "This is so absurd." And the idea that the fear one feels is privilege is where the left goes to die. Like clearly that is not the point. And clearly, yes, that is how he can't see past his own experience, his own privilege, experience far enough to actually hear what's being said here. It's, it's infuriating. Yeah.

0:39:32 Thomas: Yeah. I wrote that down yeah that was like the Minnesota council woman or something that like gave that answer to somebody and then had to go back on it or something, and like, that- that's what- yeah, no, it is actually, AOC made this point, you know, where she was like, I think she tweeted or something, what, would not- not abolishing the police. Like, I, I'm not in favor of completely abolishing the police type. I'm sure we have a listener to probably is. I don't really think that's feasible. I think you can do plenty with just diminishing their role, and having them, you know, there are select times when you'd want someone to respond with a gun.

Like, you, you, there's a fucking random ass. There are bad crimes in this society. We have too many guns for there not to be, you know, and are going to be active shooter situations. There, there are going to be hostage situations. There gonna be robberies, or they're going to be, you know, domestic violence, whatever it might be. There are going to be situations where you do want a cop with a gun to go respond. They'll still probably do a terrible fucking job because I don't believe in them or their training and they're not good at it.

And then they'll probably shoot people still, and then they will get away with it because the police unions and all that. There's a lot we have to fight. But still, there are going to be select scenarios. But what we've already seen and, you know, the back and forth over, I think was pretty good during the protests.

It was, hey, why don't we just replace, you know, like, like I'm blanking on the name, but there was that other murder by a cop who was the guy who was like falling asleep in his car in the drive-through.

0:40:25 Lindsey: Yeah I remember

0:41:42 Thomas: I think it was. Yeah. And the whole thing, like and it's disturbing because you can hear a lot of the interaction and most of the reaction was fine. And then the guy like tries to run away or I think he even stole the, he might've stolen the taser or something and runs away. And so the cop of course shoots him in the back and kills him as he's running away.

0:42:03 Thomas: Yeah. And it's like, okay, what if instead a mental health worker had responded to that call? There was no danger in that scenario, except what the cop brought. It's like the fucking cave in Star Wars. There was nothing there. There was No weapon. In, there was no anything except what the cop brought to the situation. And how many scenarios, yeah, how many scenarios are there where that could be replaced by a social worker, a mental health worker or whatever, which, by the way, we could fund better. You know, we could shift funding, you know, and

0:42:02 Lindsey: That because that makes sense yeah, yeah right yeah I mean, absolutely yeah

0:42:35 Thomas: A lot of that dialogue was good. And oh, sorry, I was bringing up the AOC point. You know she said getting rid of police or reducing police or defunding police isn't radical. It would look like what already exists in the suburbs, right? Which is totally true. I don't see the police ever. I never see them. And so let's do that. But for more places, you know, or, you Know, or figure out how to make that work or, or by the way, that's, that'S what another frustrating part of this. A lot of the problem could also be, you know other sources. I mean, income inequality and joblessness and all this other stuff. Those are all parts of the Problem, you Now, and so it's like, yeah, no one thing is going to solve all the problem. And the protesters, it's not protesters job to go out there and say, here's my 18 point plan for how to fix things. Protests are a sign of people being like, fuck this, we've had enough. And it's politicians job to translate that into action. So,

0:42:47 Lindsey: Yeah mm-hmm yeah it's

0:43:36 Thomas: So if you have problems with protesting with protesters, Sam, not knowing all the fucking details of all the research that again, you're wrong about, but like say there's some research you're right about, for example, hypothetically, the problem isn't with the protesters. The problem is with us as a society, as politicians and the people in power needing to translate that fed upness to action. And we never do.

0:44:04 Thomas: God, it's so frustrating. And look, toward the end. Oh, well, here's another thing I have throw in. Toward the end, he talks about Breonna Taylor and he says, guess what, guys? Wasn't a race thing. He says that was a problem with no knock raids, no knock warrants, it's no knock raids. Hmm. I wonder why they did a no knock raid.

0:44:06 Lindsey: The worst, yeah yep

0:44:24 Thomas: Could it be because their suspect who, by the way, didn't live there, but you know, set that aside their suspect who may have been like receiving packages at that locate, whatever the fuck it ended up being. Could it be? Because that was a black guy. Maybe could that have had any influence or, or could the neighborhood that she was living in, uh, have had Any influence on the fact that they obtained a no knock warrant? Yes, I think so.

0:44:19 Lindsey: Yeah I'm Sorry, but did you know that there was- was one time a no-knock raid at a white person's house? And what but Why aren't we upset about those cases? Why don't we know their names? That's what I want to know. It's the worst, amen.

0:44:53 Thomas: I don't even think he had that example actually.

0:45:03 Thomas: God, and So, closing here, he again says- he again says, here, here's a quote: "As I hope I made clear, we need police reform." Apologies, I know I've yelled a lot. How are we gonna get it? How are we getting police reform? Because your solution of no, absolutely no protesting anybody because you might be wrong specifically about the thing you're protesting, but I'm gonna have a conversation with Thomas Chatterton fucking Williams or whatever- is that getting you police reform? Is that doing fucking anything? Or is the only time we get any progress on any of this when a bunch of people go out on the streets and say, "Fuck this, we're fed up with it"?

God, so frustrating. We wouldn't even know about Brianna Taylor if it weren't for the protesters and the people who made it clear to everybody. We wouldn't know. No. And like, simultaneously, he relies on these self-reported police statistics. Well, I think even he acknowledges like, oh, you don't get the full story. Like we wouldn't know the full fucking story. So how many times in those statistics, Lindsay, that you've referenced in these papers or that they reference? How many times is it like, well, how can we even trust this? All we're

0:45:49 Lindsey: Yeah yeah right

0:46:21 Thomas: Getting is from the police. And we've seen time after time after times that their story ends up being bullshit. God.

0:46:31 Lindsey: Yeah, no, no, I had that exact note several times. As I was- as I was making notes on those articles, it was like they were- they were claiming to dispense with some of these criticisms about, um, racial bias coming in at other levels, but they were like, "But we controlled for this," and I was like, yeah, but they're all fucking officer reported, like- Of course.

0:46:49 Lindsey: A police officer would never lie about whether a suspect threatened them. That- that would never happen. That's never happened at all.

0:46:48 Thomas: Yep. My- God. Overall, not a big fan. Not a big fan of the episode, I guess. Just to summarize all of it, Lindsay, um, one out of five stars. Wouldn't recommend. God.

0:47:08 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, no, same. Yeah, I'm- I'm embarrassed to admit that I kept supporting his podcast for as long as I did, but like, this was the episode that I was like, "All right, I'm done." I'm gonna send him a 17 paragraph email, but why isn't dickhead and then get out of here?

0:47:22 Thomas: That he'll never read. Yeah, god.

0:47:25 Lindsey: Should have done that earlier. I

0:47:25 Thomas: It's so infuriating well we'll see, you know, we'll be- how people like this episode, sorry. I- well, I think I was pretty clear about what this would be. So, going into it, you, yeah, you know what you're getting into, folks.

0:47:41 Lindsey: Found this, I found This very cathartic. Uh, yeah.

0:47:41 Thomas: Okay. Well I'm glad you enjoyed. Maybe this is just a podcast among friends, Lindsay, you and I. Oh, it's infuriating. It's infuriating. I used to love him. I really did. I used be a huge fan, and it just- it's, he got so far up his own ass and it's it's his friends, and- and it, and I'm not taking blame away from him. Like, like he, he's responsible for that, for, for, but like when you look at Majid Nawaz, who I talked about on the last episode is retweeting Q level fucking QAnon level conspiracies about the election and shit. And this was like one of Sam's best fucking friend on some of these issues. You wonder what is this little circle of friends and Dave Rubin is among that circle of friends and that fucking asshole from the UK, uh, well, that, that applies to a few

0:47:51 Lindsey: Yeah. That's actually, I know it. Yeah, yeah. Mm hmm.

0:48:27 Lindsey: Douglas

0:48:27 Thomas: People, but Douglas Murray is in that circle.

0:48:27 Lindsey: Murray. There you go.

0:48:29 Thomas: Circle, where do you think they're getting their fucking information, do you think they are getting it from good sources, or are they reading the same bullshit right wing sources that get piped around and then they all form this little ecosystem? I think that's what's happened. I mean, he has, it's very clear, it's been clear to me for a long time, that his immediate circle are the people that he's hearing from and responding to, and you know, in fairness, this is a tough problem to solve as a human.

You know, you, whoever's around, whoever's making the the arguments, you, you know, whoever you're more exposed to, you tend to respond to that more, you know, and and that's just kind of how it goes.

Um, but he, you know, when you have a podcast like he does and you purport to be this super rational person who's having all these hard conversations, maybe have more hard conversations with people who aren't fucking Thomas Sowell, or what's, however pronounce it, or Chartered and Williams, or whatever select people that don't he's decided are the only only people who have the right opinions on stuff, who coincidentally all have the same opinion.

0:48:33 Lindsey: Yeah sure. Yeah

0:49:29 Thomas: I'll hold a, a kind of a minority opinion on, on these issues.

0:49:29 Lindsey: I don't like to explain things like that purely through through laziness, but it's just just and I'm sure it's a lot more than that here, but in part, it just seems like fucking laziness. I mean, this used to be his, the reason I liked him in the first place was because he didn't do shit like this. At least it felt that way. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm questioning everything now.

0:49:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:51 Lindsey: But in the beginning, at least, it seemed like he didn't do this. And now he does, and he's in a weird universe now that I don't recognize.

0:49:54 Thomas: Yeah, it was better. Yep.

0:50:03 Lindsey: It's super depressing.

0:50:04 Thomas: Uh, well, Lindsay, thanks so much for joining me. I appreciate these, uh, these, these episodes, both.

0:50:09 Lindsey: Thank you. Seriously, I've been saving up this rage for like months now, so like I feel a lot better now, actually. That's no.

0:50:15 Thomas: Okay. Me too. I feel better too. Well, we'll see if it's worth getting into of the other episode that he did. I know you would listen to it. I haven't gotten to it. It's too much. Uh, listeners, I hope, uh, patrons, I hope you enjoyed this. Uh, we'll see if this ever goes out on the main feed. Maybe it will. I'll just keep it patron only for now, but we'll say, um, thanks so much. What's that? Yeah.

0:50:23 Lindsey: It's not it's bullshit. Hey, I was just gonna say maybe somebody will send it to Sam Harris and he'll decide to have a difficult conversation. That'd be fun.

0:50:39 Thomas: Nope. He has declared he had one conversation with Ezra Klein who fucking mopped the floor with him, and he said never again. I'll never, because, you know why, because it's, to their, a radical left or something. Yep, yep, all right, see you folks next time.

0:50:41 Lindsey: Nope. Yeah,

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