Sam Harris is Hilarious: Is it Intentional?

[goddamnit]

A long time ago, I introduced Sam Harris to my friend and we watched YouTube videos with Sam Harris. We cracked up many times. Sam Harris keeps a really straight face while calm and speaking with a nice-guy voice, while ripping on religion with funny insults. Has anyone else noticed this? I wonder if he watches recordings of himself and laughs his head off after he debates these people. I mean, can he really not realize that his audiences find it hilarious after the first few times they laugh in response to what he says?

It seems to make sense as an effective and deliberate strategy. It seems he purposely tries to craft words to form the most strident (but totally valid!) jokes possible about religion while keeping a great poker face. This is just a speculation. Am I way off?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW1kvmSFQWE

[Tiberius]

He's also an anti-muslim bigot, judging by his recent statements about why we should profile muslims at airports.

[goddamnit]

Yeah. I read about half of that E-mail exchange (it was long) and it seemed like Sam Harris made excellent criticisms of Islam and even refuted Bruce on certain points, but those points were totally irrelevant for substantiating his main claim. Sometimes I am skeptical of Sam (e.g. assuming utilitarianism in The Moral Landscape or not flatly rejecting the TSA searches altogether), but between his creative ways to call out religion and his good intentions, it is hard not to love the guy.

[Tiberius]

I don't believe you can have "good intentions" and support discrimination of muslims, or as Sam Harris would have it, arab-looking people. Bruce Schneier tore Harris apart in that debate, as he does with anyone who thinks security theatre works.

[goddamnit]

Well, at any rate, whether or not his intentions are "good," I concede it is a ridiculous argument. My significant other is a Muslim too, so that policy would annoy me on a personal level if it ever happened. On a side note, did you see my question for you in the Technology section?

[Angrboda]

I haven't read a lot of Sam Harris, and watched even less of his videos, but I've slowly become disenchanted with him. The Moral Landscape being the biggest hit to his credibility, as that book was largely pretentious crap.

And not being impressed with him in general, I don't go out of my way to give him an audience.

(One of my book clubs is doing a twofer, his Letter To A Christian Nation, which I've read, and his recent book on Free Will, which I haven't. Having been embroiled in debates about Free Will, and having a selection of quality literature on the subject, I'm curious to see whether he does a decent job, or simply repeats the kind of mistakes that made The Moral Landscape so disappointing. The same book club is doing Dennett's Freedom Evolves — at my request — before the Harris book. Not that I have any great plans to study up for Harris, but I may get around to reading the relevant sections in the Oxford Handbook Of Free Will beforehand; it would behoove me to re-read Elbow Room, but I doubt I will. That book makes my head spin.)

[Erinome]

I chuckled quite a bit while reading Letter to a Christian Nation. It was really good.