'We Find Genocides Boring': Sam Harris on Moral Illusions

[Lars77]

Run time: 03:18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9_MWjILO6A   Posted on YouTube: January 10, 2011 By YouTube Member: ForaTv Views on YouTube: 516   Posted on DU: January 11, 2011 By DU Member: Lars77 Views on DU: 759

 

[southmost]

1. this country was founded upon genocide

so, it sounds normal/acceptable

[Behind the Aegis]

2. I disagree.

Some of it may be genocides are often politicized and individuals are not. There is also the "overwhelming nature" which may come into play.

[Raoul]

3. You know what I find boring?

Him along with his inflated ego. And he says nothing that most people already know.

[DRex]

5. So you're saying he says only things that a minority of people know?

I wonder why you think that about his ego, or why you think it should have anything to do with the very interesting video I just watched?

Sam Harris is a neurologist, and as such his last book said quite a lot of things that I didn't already know, thank you very much.

[Jim__]

4. More oversimplification from Sam Harris.

"This is a bug, not a feature."

Really? And how did he make that determination? We don't understand the way we are wired, but, presumably, we are wired this way rather than another way, because this wiring contributed to our survival.

Why would we be wired to be more concerned about the plight of one child rather than the plight of 800,000 children? I don't know. It may be that we can help one child but can't easily help 800,000.

Am I claiming we should ignore the plight of 800,000 children? No. But I am saying that we can't just proclaim that we are wired incorrectly. I don't know what Harris goes on to say here; but I have listened to some complete talks of his in the past and I find him remarkably simplistic in his approach to complex problems.

[DRex]

6. Our wiring contributed to our survival...

whenever that particular piece of wiring evolved. It may not be relevant anymore, a vestigial non-player, or it may indeed have detrimental effects. We did not evolve to comprehend and emotionally process things on the scale of genocides. We would never have had to. That's all he is saying. We seem ill-equipped to properly comprehend and respond to some things in the modern world, simply because our brains aren't evolved to deal with them. They are evolved to deal with other things.