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The Scott Adams special.

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don't be too hard on scott.

it's tough being the only smart person in the whole wide world...

/sarc

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The hardest lies to ignore are the ones we tell ourselves. Scott is probably still high on his own farts though.

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Welp... if you think Scott Harris won the award for Most Self-Beclowned, you're mistaken.

It was the other half of the Conclusory Crew - Sam Adams - wot won it.

'Neuroscience'-guy was always going to beclown himself at some point, because he was always going to say the quiet part out loud about Palestine.

Self-promoting charlatans have interchangeable names, is what I'm sayin'.

At least Dilbert-guy is solid on "stuff with psych in the name" - he knows it's bullshit ab ovo usque ad mala. 'Neuroscience'-guy is of a type with the pill-pushing psychosophasers who are changing nomenclature because their brand is broken and all their pill essays ('research') ends up on RetractionWatch.

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DonтАЩt forget that Sam thinks there is a background level of schizophrenia suffered by people who disagree with him.

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That's the 'tell' that shows that 'neuroscientist' is just a marketing name for some psych-charlatan: when they get cornered, they resort to bullshit that sounds like stuff from the old USSR (where being a disident was considered a psychiatric condition).

Then again, I would say that wouldn't I?

What with being

тАГтЦкя╕ПтАГan Aquarius-of-colour, and

тАГтЦкя╕ПтАГa veteran, and

тАГтЦкя╕ПтАГa Guided Missile Frigate (Oliver Hazard Perry-Class), and

тАГтЦкя╕ПтАГa cancer 'survivor', and

тАГтЦкя╕ПтАГsuffering from Oppositional Defiant Disorder (a.k.a. "Get Fucked, Dr Idiot" disorder) AND drapetomania.

Some of above list might actually be true - this is the internet, and I've still got one chemo session to go and I haven't 'survived' that yet. My Guided-Missile-Frigate-ness is non-negotiable, in that anyone who questions it is "Litrully Hitlurrr, Like LITRULLY".

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Dec 8, 2022
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Harris is one of the people who helped changed my mind on Free Will. (I couldn't change my own mind - because I wasn't free to do so... KEK)

That's one of 2 or 3 'important' subjects about which I have changed my mind, having being fairly certain I had them nailed down.

The other main one was "passive smoking is a risk to health": when I was encouraged by a senior colleague to read the published research that supposedly buttresses that claim, there's no "there" there. That was in 1994, in my first year as PhD student and Junior Minion at a CGE-modelling think-tank.

People who smoke near me make my clothes stink, and that'll have to do as justification for my (lifelong) calumniation of that stupid habit.

"First they came for the smokers, and I thought 'GREAT. Fuck those inconsiderate arseholes'."

FWIW I won't even smoke weed. Edibles or tincture are perfectly satisfactory - fun, even. That said: NOBODY WILL SELL ME WEED (to make tincture) because if you're a weed dealer I look like a cop.

True story bro: during the Victorian COVID Gulag I did an entire lap of Australia in an RV, and approached every sketchy-looking motherfucker in every caravan park, and came up dry every time.

FFS I get it - risk management and so forth. So I really have to get a neck tattoo? In my jurisdiction weed is still illegal and tobacco isn't [FFS again].

So anyhow... Harris writes OK, but he's no Mencken.

Harris - like Adams - is another example of "High-V, and nowhere near as smart as you're encouraged to think", which is my version of Taleb's "IYI".

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The Moral Landscape addresses some deeply uncomfortable issues about whether insane people who commit crimes are actually capable of being punished. In fact, his theory questions whether they're even "guilty" at all.

It's well-sourced and scholarly but still readable.

But his political takes served well getting him to all the right DC Cocktail Parties.

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He was watching the wrong movie all along.

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