It must have been around 2010 or so when I first learnt about the new atheist movement. Back then, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, where pretty much intellectuals celebrities, and they found themselves never too far away from the spotlight.
They wrote many books, participated of many infamous debates, and became regular guests on news networks to talk about a myriad of subjects affecting American politics.
With the passage of time, and after Christopher died, the momentum of this intellectual movement began to lose steam, if you will.
Sam, slowly but surely, became incredibly focused on politics back in 2015, when Trump announced his candidacy, and throughout Trump's whole administration; It seemed that all he did was to talk about the Trump phenomenon.
Some say that it was this obsession of his that broke his brain, and even thought I don't fully agree with that remark, I do se merit in the observation.
The fights began
I have to admit that I always hated the idea of the IDW, the Intellectual dark web, but for a while it seemed like Sam had found new allies on what he would call "fight for reason and sanity".
But as with many tepid alliances, the members of said group, the IDW, began fighting among themselves, with Sam and the Weinstein brothers (latecomers to the public Intellectual landscape) becoming sworn enemies.
One thing I will grant to Sam is that he's never been one to shy away from speaking his mind, even if it truly screwed him over, even if it hurt him publicly, but this doesn't mean he was consistent, and many people began calling him out for this.
The laptop
https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1560061984699064320
In a now infamous episode of the Triggernometry podcast, Sam can be found defending Hunter Biden laptop coverup to the shock of the hosts who sat across from him.
A man who wrote books about honesty, who sustained the idea that lying is a form of aggression and thus should never be used, is now saying that hiding Hunter Biden's scandal from the public, and lying about it, was in the best interest of the country.
The truth is I've heard Sam deploy his most advance sophistry to explain this away, but aside from the three or four seconds where I find myself leaning in his direction, I can't seem to justify his rationale at all.
Is this TDS?
If one was to believe, truly believe, that Trump is the new Hitler, the one that will beget the end of the American experiment, then I guess all actions are justified.
Apparent to anyone who tries to look at this objectively, Sam believes this to be the case, and I suspect he thinks he's on a mission to save America from the orange overlord.
We can, and we should, criticize the bad things that our politicians say and do, and I give him props for doing so. He's taken jabs at multiple public figures, including Hillary, but with Trump it's just different.
And now... Elon
I listened to an entertaining podcast yesterday as my wife and I worked around the house finishing up some projects. Bill Maher had Sam on his club random podcast, and all sorts of topics came up. Among those topics, his falling out with Elon Musk.
Sam explained to Bill how the conflict began, about Elon's relationship with the authors of the pizzagate conspiracy, and how Sam's attempts to reach out to Elon to "help him" ended up with Elon replying to Sam's emails with a short "go fuck yourself".
They also talked about Israel and Palestina, and to be honest, they both can't seem to consider the possibility that they might be wrong, but alas, I'm not sitting here expecting for Sam to change his biases all of the sudden.
Where to now?
Not a clue, but I suspect things are not all peachy as Sam claims they are. He makes it a point to say that he's un-cancelable, since he's setup his business in a way where he doesn't depend on unreliable sources of income. But, if everyone is pissed off at the things you are saying, or if a big chunk of your would be audience is screaming at the screen watching you be "so wrong" these days. Who then is to pay for the memberships?
MenO