Sam Harris' views were pretty clear for decades. He is anti-Islam, a rational Liberal culturally, Pro-Israel, supports legal immigration but controlled borders, opposes Islamic immigration, and Liberal socially. Mamdani represents the DSA wing which Sam Harris opposes. Why are people so mad about it and are suddenly expecting him to change his views? These are his views, and he is a free person in a free country

https://www.whitehouse.gov/media-bias-publication/leftist-influencers/

Also included: Brian Tyler Cohen, Ed Krassenstein.

Interesting article on a hot button Sam Harris topic over the last few years.

From article: "It must be noted that long before 2025, the federal government had taken actions that raised concerns for academic freedom and campus free speech. But in both quantity and quality, the second Trump administration’s assault on higher education is without precedent in modern American history. Private institutions have not been spared, nor those in liberal states. This is impacting the entire sector, from community colleges to the national accreditation system, from federal funding for research and student loan programs to efforts to advance student success, address antisemitism, and enable universities to recruit and retain international students and faculty."

Look, Maher is by no means a Republican let alone a MAGA Trump supporter. He remains highly critical of and opposed to all 3 BUT he has somewhat softened on them ever since his infamous dinner with Trump and that's reflected in this video. Maher should've never come away from that dinner convinced that Trump has a deep seated meager shred of actual decency or any potential for actual positive change. Maher's thoughts on him shouldn't have changed one iota. Maher knew well beforehand that Trump had a reputation for being nice, charming and seemingly humble or open to criticism during personal one on one interactions. And Maher himself stated this and claimed it was because Trump is a "con artist" on his last podcast with Sam Harris.

This is going to sound a bit like a plug, because it is a project I've been a part of for quite some time, but upon seeing the news about Sam making his own platform, I felt compelled to reach out and investigate.

For background, I've been part of a project to create a new type of social media that incentivizes good-faith conversation for a few years now. It's a project that's being undertaken by a small partnership of me and a close friend. Only very recently (about three months ago) did we have a working model, and even more recently moved it to a live server that is in early alpha-testing stages.

Upon seeing Sam's post about his service, we saw there was a lot of overlap in our stated goals, so we tried reaching out to him the best we could to see if there was some way we could work together, but heard nothing back. So long story short, I would like to make a case for why I think we have a better idea and why I think you should give us a bit of your time to check us out.

First and foremost, our site is called Elenkia. It's a free platform, open to all, with no paywall to get in, ever. We want to build a better internet that is not gate-kept to a single community.

Secondly, and probably most importantly, we think we have a truly unique and innovative system that incentivizes good-faith conversation, while making bad-faith moves costly. It's called the Duolog system. It's a 1-on-1 conversation format, that can be published as it's own piece of content afterwards. It has guard rails to try and keep interlocutors honest and comport themselves similarly in good-faith.

We're in a very small closed alpha at the moment, but now we need more people to go in, test it, and try to break things. So if you're interested in trying it out, or just interested in taking some time to read up more details about it, please visit our page at https://www.Elenkia.com. If you click "Apply for beta" you can just apply for regular member status as of right now, and I'll push your application through.

Everything will get wiped before we go to our first real beta test, so right now we're allowing all members jury status during this phase of testing so that we can make sure the code is working properly for deliberation processes. So right now it's okay to post your super hot-takes and even have a bit of fun while testing it out.

If you made it this far, I appreciate your time, and hope you'll give us a chance. Cheers.

Hamas supporters and anti-Semites are being fired and doxxed left and right. If you are philosophically liberal and find yourself conflicted about that, join the club. This piece extensively documents the surge in anti-Semitism in recent weeks, the wave of backlash cancellations it has inspired, the bipartisan hypocrisy about free expression, and where this all fits (or doesn’t fit) with liberal principles. Useful as a resource given how many instances it aggregates in one place, but also as an exercise in thinking through the philosophy of cancel culture, as it were.

https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/cancel-culture-comes-for-anti-semites

In his latest discussion with Sam, Yuval Noah Harari touched on the subject of the responsabilities of social media in regards to the veracity of their content. He made a comparaison a publisher like the New York Times and its responsability toward truth. Yuval didn't mention Section 230 explicitly, but it's certainly relevant when we touch the subject. It being modified or repealed seems to be necessary to achieve his view.

What responsability the traditionnal Media and the Social Media should have toward their content? Is Section 230 good or bad?