Sam Harris's compelling arguments against Trump (audio)

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A Youtube audio presentation of compelling, rational anti-Trump arguments, for those who care to hear them.

I got about 8 minutes in and gave up.
There are no facts, just appeals to emotion and aims to convince the listener what he says about Trump is true "because he said so".

I don't care if the guy sounds nice or horrible, so long as he shares information. He doesn't even cite any investors he claims share his concerns. He just says they exist. There is a lot of evidence to the contrary in the media be it in video or blog or news format of people that support his economic plans.

I'm more than accepting he's no diplomat, doesn't use big words, says bad and risky things. I still don't think that's a case to disqualify anyone from the oval office.

Harris' arguments are not pitched to all audiences, that's certainly true.

I'm surprised that you think of them as appeals to emotion--he isn't without emotion, true, but his arguments are designed to engage the rational thought processes and critical thinking faculties of his audience.

Rather than appeals to emotion and arguments from assumed authority, Harris presents reasoned arguments based on logic and assumes that his audience is already familiar with Trump and Clinton's words and he can refer to that common base of facts without regurgitating them and spoon feeding them to his audience.

It is, for example, a fact that Trump frequently repeats essentially meaningless things three times in a row--as if mere repetition added meaning. It is also true that this is not the mode of communication of someone seeking to persuade through intelligent debate or exposition of thought. His verbal style is more like that of tent revival preacher or carnival barker.

Many citizens and voters would probably agree with him that not being a diplomat, saying bad and risky things in inexpressive language should disqualify someone from the office of President of the United States.

His discussion of his own ethical arguments around the use of torture and contrasting of those arguments with Trump's declarations about torture illuminate a profound difference in thinking.

Harris also presents strong critiques of Clinton in many areas, makes a compelling case for a robust defense of Western civilization against the barbarism of Jihadism and Islamism.

He is not a simplistic thinker, or any kind of knee-jerk leftist.

That's a joke, right? Mocking a disabled person is OK? Not knowing anything is OK? Saying risky things when war is involved is OK? Are you a complete sociopath?

This just in:

Washington Post: Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005

Not like it's going to make any difference, but it shows him to be a classy guy.

Martin Luther King used to have "extremely lewd conversations" with women.

That didn't disqualify him from the Nobel Peace Prize.

With them or about them? There's a difference.

Both.

Trump is not a guy I'm particularly delighted with. When I see is picture, I want to vomit.

But I believe every man and woman has extremely lewd conversations with each other at one time or another.

I don't.

God, I'm more of a geek than I realized.

LOL....I said "at one time or another"--not constantly.

I'm surprised you haven't discussed sexual matters with your old FWB.

Even if you haven't, it doesn't make you a nerd/geek--it makes you modest.

Kudos to Sam Harris for saying that Hillary is a hawk. He sees this as a good thing and I see it as a bad thing ... but kudos to him nonetheless.

Some people have called Trump "the American Hitler". I disagree. If Trump is Hitler, why did he let his daughter convert to Judaism? America already had a Hitler before Hitler. It's more accurate to say that the Nazis were the Confederates of Europe.

It's much easier to say that Trump is the American Netanyahu. Trump is a bloke who looks at the stuff Israel does to Muslims and says "I wish we were doing that."

I was going to post that too. Your future president, ladies and gentlemen. Grab him by the p----y before he gets away!

Last edited by AspE on 07 Oct 2016, 8:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What are you talking about?

Hillary is a "hawk" as opposed to what? And as opposed to whom?

If by "hawk" you mean continuing our involvement in the Middle East to defeat ISIS "hawks" are the only candidates that there are.

Trump yaps self contradictory nonsense about "destroying ISIS" and NOT waging war in the same breath. So Trump himself can be dismissed as having no actual opinion nor stance of any kind on the issue.

But his running mate is definitely opinionated, and definitely hawkish: and demanded that we "bomb Assad and stop Russia in Syria" in the last debate.

So its a given that whichever candidate wins America will be remain deeply involved in the Middle East (ie be "hawkish" in some fashion or another, and not be pacifist in the ME).

And what choice do we even have?

How would a 'non hawk', or 'dove' deal with the situation in the ME any way?

You yourself are being "hawkish" by suggesting that the US should use Netanyahu as a role model.

Vote for Jill Stein. She wants to cut the American military budget 50%.
She, unfortunately, still wants to declare war in ISIS. Someone probably paid her to say that.
If she goes to war, we should protest and encourage people to not join the military.
Either way, we need to protest this vile system that keeps provoking the terrorists more.


I hate Trump and I think he is just like Netanyahu. They are two jokers in the same deck of cards.

"Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards!"
- Alice

There are some things that escape me about the anti-Trump arguments, but in particular the notion of being "qualified" to be President.
In Britain, we are plagued by a class of career politicians at the moment, who study, for example, PPE at Oxbridge, graduate, segway into a job working for a politician, 10 years later get selected for election by the party in an unsafe seat. Tow the line, keep your mouth shut, don't make any enemies, next election cycle they put you in a safe seat and you're in parliament running the country. It's been this way for decades here and abroad, and I doubt there is a person in the western world who can say that these modern career politicians as a group, have not at some point made some catastrophic decisions and their collective lack of experience in anything outside of politics may well be a reason for that.

To me qualifications go hand in hand with the idea of seeing politics as a career, and that idea really irritates me. To not see politics as a calling or a grand instrument of change or a solemn duty, but as a source of income and status. It isn't how politics should be. It might be why Trump is doing as well as he is. Clinton is nothing special, vote for her, you get more of the same. Trump doesn't need the money, he is already more famous than many politicians can ever hope to be. I think Trump voters sense that on some level, even if they don't agree with everything he says.

Are qualifications for presidency really something to be concerned about? Or is this just a cheap shot that doesn't make sense if analysed? To work under a political party machine you have to be on board with 99% of that party's vision. Anyone who deviates from that vision is either excluded or controlled and will never see power. So to be qualified means to have worked in politics... but to work in politics you have be similar enough in thought, word and deed to the extant political class. That's how the system is right now, so any candidate offering real change, will be an enemy of the political class, will not have worked with or under them and will be "unqualified" by default.

Perhaps you mean qualified in the sense of foreign relations? To be able to take the lead in international affairs, to not make a joke about eating dogs in front of his Chinese counterpart. A valid concern you might think, but everyone's memory seems to be very short, you guys had an idiot for president quite recently. His endless gaffes, unthinking one-liners, ditsy behaviour and unintentional offence had the whole world in fits of laughter for years. A nuclear exchange didn't happen with the inept Mr. Bush at the helm. Trump may actually be better than Bush in this regard once his necessarily demagogic campaign comes to an end.
The shining example of Bush also works for the final point I would like to make: Even if there is such a thing as being qualified to be president, the president is not the government. The Bush administration was possibly the most Machiavellian government the US has ever seen, Bush the man was an empty headed teddy bear.

Trump, I think, is neither of the two seemingly contradictory personas the media have created for him, that of the hapless idiot and the closet racist evil visionary. He is not as dumb as Bush, but he's not the Dark Lord of Mordor either planning to sign Mexican internment orders with the blood of ISIS jihadis. He is smart enough to fill the government with people much smarter than he is to find solutions to the (very real) issues on which he is getting elected. And that I think is what you need in a president, someone to set the tone and find the right people to actually make things happen.

W was a disaster, but he was more intelligent and better informed than Trump, big league.

The reason some of us think a president should be a thoughtful, at least moderately well-informed person is that history suggests that person will have to make many hard decisions with enormous consequence for the US and the world.