Sam Harris Has an Incurable Disease: Akrasia.
17 March 2018 [link youtube]
When asked about veganism, Sam Harris's reply is "the Akarasia problem". No, it's not really an incurable disease, but it is his explanation for what he's not vegan.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
managed to just engineer tofu that is so
so healthy that we can live off of it maybe one day in the future he speculates maybe one day they will in contrast to meet in contrast to cheese Oh will we are will scientists ever discovered tofu in the future that's healthier than meat or cheese that's what he's waiting for if you had to get up every morning and reinvent civilization for yourself it would be hard to be a civilized person yes if you had to wake up every morning and reinvent civilization that would be hard waking up every morning and saying hmm cow milk on my cereal versus vanilla soy milk on my cereal which one's it gonna be that's really [ __ ] easy a bonus Yin the question of the audience is way more interesting than anything I've heard herself or say in this topic so veganism is a topic that means an awful lot to me and I'm not going to be one of those guys that you know goes in here and tries to heckle people the way that vegans often get a reputation of militancy for and I think that that's generally counterproductive but but my question is people will often reason their way to a moral position but you don't see them adopt that moral position in real life and I'm wondering why there's that disconnect of reason and application Robert Sapolsky in his recent book talked about associating things with disgust when it comes to morality and there being you having to do something to that effect to actually apply morals that you reason to I'm wondering what both of your thoughts are about this it's hard to do what you acknowledge is good that's that's one question whether or not veganism is actually the most moral prescription I think we can debate that but but do you have a sense of of the the crazy problem that you you know what you should be doing but you find hard to actually do yeah I think that is part of the part of the human condition and we we redo because we have these built-in drives in relation to cow milk really like really you can remember it's not that long you can remember the difference between the taste of cow milk on breakfast cereal and soy milk on breakfast cereal really like I think a lot of people a lot of people are driven by terrible dark passions I was working out at the gym today there I'm surrounded by good-looking people a homeland and some hideously ugly people both I should include both feelings of attraction and repulsion it's just curiosity you know some yeah also just weird interesting people you want to know what's a I'd say a goddamn word anybody hey you know I I talked to this one guy asked me to spot him or somebody sums the other day guy talked to me about doing push-ups asked for advice don't push it but you know what I mean sure I mean I think you know a lot of people have biological urges that don't fit that well into their daily lives okay you know what the best version that you've wrought you've never been in the situation having a crush on a co-worker the office crush that's like you know the millions of years of evolution and running straight into you know all the conventions of the workplace that's new you've never you've never done that right you know when I was in China for a while I had I had a crush on a trainer at the gym oh you know what whatever I call it like you know woman who worked at the gym yeah no I know but your personal trainer but she's also like a manager that kind of thing and you know there are real limits modern modern society plays limits on those things but both in terms of the desire burning in the human heart and the type of gratification that comes from shall we say giving into that desire yeah I can't put it at all when they say okay you know another one this is really foreign to me I'm not this kind of guy what about revenge well I mean if you read any ancient literature anything ancient Greek ancient Roman ancient Indian but I think the whole in China each in Japan everywhere I've read literature from him leaving out a whole bunch of places but I mean revenge the culture of range of desiring and yearning for revenge and then modern society making revenge impossible that you have a literature degree sorry my girlfriend off camera you know you must have read literature I mean revenge is such a huge every form Russian literature English literature that's I mean to what extent that's biology or works then it's just it's just desire whatever says just yearning and then I mean basically a modern society there is absolutely no acceptable form of revenge neither petty nor profound you know neither legal nor illegal you know and again that can be in the workplace pardon me it can be in the workplace people can be wanting to get revenge on a co-worker or their boss or you know their employee yeah but you know and there's so there's a strong desire there and there's for most people there's a sense of gratification when it comes I've really never been a revenge guy that would be a separate video like why that is about me or like what you know you know you look back and it's like maybe I should be you know like maybe maybe the revenge people know something I don't like really I don't I don't even think I'm morally superior it's just to some extent how I'm wired and how I've lived my life and stuff I haven't I haven't been about revenge um yeah that would be a separate video though but okay any of these things reproduction through revenge I understand you know in this kind of frankly [ __ ] uh you know generalizations they're making about you know the struggle between believing what's in what's morally right having a sense more than what you actually yearn to do you know if somebody murdered your father in front of your eyes and you want revenge so any any literature any school philosophy industry those are the kinds of problems people did with you know that kind of thing these this is not nothing but the difference between having your breakfast cereal with cow milk versus soy milk what the [ __ ] bro like how weak are you you know it like being a vegan today in 2018 it doesn't even require any of the moral fiber that it required you know a few decades ago when when your diet really would have been broccoli and lentils when you couldn't buy like soy ice cream you know like if you didn't make it yourself there was no way you could today you can get it everywhere you know oh oh the difference between coughs cream and soy ice cream I by the way I'm not someone who likes ice cream to begin with I really dislike Cal ice cream anyway you know most of this stuff oh oh life without omelets you know I you know I just I just don't see it I just don't see it and again you know you my girlfriend off-camera she's seen 899 out of my 900 videos at this point it's nothing we could use examples of cocaine but look okay let's let's take the high road here you know what about the yearning to write your own memoir to write your autobiography what about the yearning of the poet to write poetry or to have his poetry find an audience to have recognition for his art form the yearning of the painter to paint there were powerful desires not all of them so dark and terrible just the context of this discussion is supposable giving in to your dark and terrible orders there are things that really drive people I mean I was I was really driven to study Korean a jib way I was really driven to study pally pal he's an obscure language from Southeast Asia a language say nothing about I was really you know driven to do humanitarian work and stuff and when you have those passions this is also very crypto Buddhist of me but you know the more passions you have even if they're there positive socially sanctioned passions they're there you know regarded positively in our society there's a lot of suffering you know there's a lot of suffering on that road we presumably saw that you're passionate about but this this it's it's just so weak to me I can't if these are middle-aged man's sam harris is fully fifty years of age you know okay you're talking to a 12 year old you're talking to a 15 year old and if a 15 year old says to you they don't know if they can live without chocolate ice cream okay bro you're 15 you don't know that much about what living with [ __ ] is like and you don't know that much about what living without [ __ ] is like 50 year old grown-ass man with a PhD and a whole bunch of pretentious publications about Buddhist philosophy written out of his ignorant ass this is really low this is really weak to me like the taste of meat like like a lot of things that we can't justify and it's a question of a combination of self-control and norms that we share that push us away from urges that we cannot justify that is one part of our really briefly I think this is the weakest area philosophy there's a quote from Karl Marx that is in some ways completely untrue where he says the purpose of philosophy is not to describe the world but to change it I do think there is a trap people can fall into where they're offering philosophical generalizations that sort of absolutely no purpose aside from a descriptive one I'm like you know do you want to describe to me what the purpose of a fly belt is in a car engine you know he's like oh yeah how does the drivetrain connect to that no come on my dude this is this is actually the opposite of analysis this is really the opposite of philosophy in the meaningful sense what you're doing here it's one part of our of human nature namely you don't want to be looked down upon by the people you respect can push back against another namely you you enjoy activities that you can't justify that's all he has to [ __ ] say that's all he has to say sorry it's mind blow that's just mind blowing to me but in whatever a lot of work that we can't individually do right so it's it's just it's hard if you had to get up every morning and reinvent civilization for yourself it would be hard to be a civilized person yes if you had to wake up every morning and reinvent civilization that would be hard waking up every morning and saying hmm cow milk on my cereal versus vanilla soy milk on my cereal which one's it gonna be that's really [ __ ] easy it's really [ __ ] easy for a rich pampered piece of [ __ ] famous for no [ __ ] reason Vanity PhD ignorant ass [ __ ] who all makes up [ __ ] about the Pali Canon out of his ass never learned to read the power of language has absolutely no credentials in Buddhist meditation and publishes one pretentious self-indulgent eBook after another because nothing praising the liberal media because apparently he's the only guy who is um pro-gun control and Pro Airport checks and some others just slightly conservative [ __ ] while also being a a theist I me up a public voice for a theater Sam Harris has had the easiest [ __ ] ride in the mainstream media Sam Harris has had less scrutiny than Donald Trump in his election I mean there is no scrutiny of this man's values to the ultimate free ride but he did at several points go out of his way to preach veganism and then went out of his way to backpedal and make excuses for why he couldn't follow through and this is it it would just be so hard to wake up in the morning and reinvent civilization that would be hard and that's wildly irrelevant you're dodging and Sam I don't even know if you really understand what it is you're dodging it couldn't come a time but we will look back on the details of factory farming and it'll be like looking back on in the future we can look back equals factory farming and think about Tim was and you can wake up every morning and drink cow milk and eat steaks for no [ __ ] reason I don't I'm G who can see the hypocrisy in this position the relatively distant past and so morality is something we apply to the distant past got it got it ethics doesn't have to do with the decisions we make over things we can control here in our decisions we can make your renow outcomes we're giving here now it's something we reserve for passing judgment on the distant past deep deep Sam deep so I think there's an interesting ethical wrinkle with respect to the prospect of farming in such a way that the the lives of farm animals are net positive we're really not disputing farming though are we like you don't own a farm Sam and you're not about to influence or change anything on the farm like really this is another dodge you even feel you're well we're we're discussing you as a consumer and you as a self-identified self-styled ethical philosopher and leader what difference you can make and one of the differences you can make right now is it hearing to a vegan diet that you yourself repeatedly said is ethically superior to the dietary choices you make right so that it's better to have it existed as a cow than to have not existed at all and if we have some sense that these are indeed happy cows well then it would be better to raise them and treat them well and then finally eat them then it would be deeply immoral even that perspective do we exist to vindicate the lives of the Bears and the Lions is the purpose of humanity to bring meaning to the lives and deaths of bears and lions and wolves no role is not to imbue their lives with meaning or value our role is to get out of their way and let them live and die in the wild you know to have all the joys and all the sorrows of being wild animals not to have them live in a steel cage under a steel sky where there oh my god forcibly impregnated have their babies stolen from them killed and eaten to be milked etc etc the unspeakable evils effect reforming and also not to have cushions and carpeting added to that concrete floor in the steel factory to make you feel better about your ludicrous impossible to justify dietary choices Sam oh wow he's on the wrong foot he's on the wrong foot to an unbelievable extent you finally eat them than it would be to do not have done any of that and managed to just engineer tofu that is so so healthy that we can live off of it maybe one day in the future he speculates maybe one day they will in contrast to meet in contrast at cheese Oh will we or will scientists ever discovered tofu in the future that's healthier than meat or cheese that's what he's waiting for do you think it's gonna be 2030 you think he's gonna be an old gray man he's your micro think they finally came out with that new tofu I mean it was a close thing I mean like over here you have bacon you just look at the macros and how the bags are being over here you have tofu hmm do you think he's even aware of the extent that he's lying I think he's being dishonest you know most of all with himself you know so I think it's it's it's an interesting ethical problem but I would certainly acknowledge that what we have currently is not like that and that it is a horror show that's a wrap [Music] [Music] evolution
so healthy that we can live off of it maybe one day in the future he speculates maybe one day they will in contrast to meet in contrast to cheese Oh will we are will scientists ever discovered tofu in the future that's healthier than meat or cheese that's what he's waiting for if you had to get up every morning and reinvent civilization for yourself it would be hard to be a civilized person yes if you had to wake up every morning and reinvent civilization that would be hard waking up every morning and saying hmm cow milk on my cereal versus vanilla soy milk on my cereal which one's it gonna be that's really [ __ ] easy a bonus Yin the question of the audience is way more interesting than anything I've heard herself or say in this topic so veganism is a topic that means an awful lot to me and I'm not going to be one of those guys that you know goes in here and tries to heckle people the way that vegans often get a reputation of militancy for and I think that that's generally counterproductive but but my question is people will often reason their way to a moral position but you don't see them adopt that moral position in real life and I'm wondering why there's that disconnect of reason and application Robert Sapolsky in his recent book talked about associating things with disgust when it comes to morality and there being you having to do something to that effect to actually apply morals that you reason to I'm wondering what both of your thoughts are about this it's hard to do what you acknowledge is good that's that's one question whether or not veganism is actually the most moral prescription I think we can debate that but but do you have a sense of of the the crazy problem that you you know what you should be doing but you find hard to actually do yeah I think that is part of the part of the human condition and we we redo because we have these built-in drives in relation to cow milk really like really you can remember it's not that long you can remember the difference between the taste of cow milk on breakfast cereal and soy milk on breakfast cereal really like I think a lot of people a lot of people are driven by terrible dark passions I was working out at the gym today there I'm surrounded by good-looking people a homeland and some hideously ugly people both I should include both feelings of attraction and repulsion it's just curiosity you know some yeah also just weird interesting people you want to know what's a I'd say a goddamn word anybody hey you know I I talked to this one guy asked me to spot him or somebody sums the other day guy talked to me about doing push-ups asked for advice don't push it but you know what I mean sure I mean I think you know a lot of people have biological urges that don't fit that well into their daily lives okay you know what the best version that you've wrought you've never been in the situation having a crush on a co-worker the office crush that's like you know the millions of years of evolution and running straight into you know all the conventions of the workplace that's new you've never you've never done that right you know when I was in China for a while I had I had a crush on a trainer at the gym oh you know what whatever I call it like you know woman who worked at the gym yeah no I know but your personal trainer but she's also like a manager that kind of thing and you know there are real limits modern modern society plays limits on those things but both in terms of the desire burning in the human heart and the type of gratification that comes from shall we say giving into that desire yeah I can't put it at all when they say okay you know another one this is really foreign to me I'm not this kind of guy what about revenge well I mean if you read any ancient literature anything ancient Greek ancient Roman ancient Indian but I think the whole in China each in Japan everywhere I've read literature from him leaving out a whole bunch of places but I mean revenge the culture of range of desiring and yearning for revenge and then modern society making revenge impossible that you have a literature degree sorry my girlfriend off camera you know you must have read literature I mean revenge is such a huge every form Russian literature English literature that's I mean to what extent that's biology or works then it's just it's just desire whatever says just yearning and then I mean basically a modern society there is absolutely no acceptable form of revenge neither petty nor profound you know neither legal nor illegal you know and again that can be in the workplace pardon me it can be in the workplace people can be wanting to get revenge on a co-worker or their boss or you know their employee yeah but you know and there's so there's a strong desire there and there's for most people there's a sense of gratification when it comes I've really never been a revenge guy that would be a separate video like why that is about me or like what you know you know you look back and it's like maybe I should be you know like maybe maybe the revenge people know something I don't like really I don't I don't even think I'm morally superior it's just to some extent how I'm wired and how I've lived my life and stuff I haven't I haven't been about revenge um yeah that would be a separate video though but okay any of these things reproduction through revenge I understand you know in this kind of frankly [ __ ] uh you know generalizations they're making about you know the struggle between believing what's in what's morally right having a sense more than what you actually yearn to do you know if somebody murdered your father in front of your eyes and you want revenge so any any literature any school philosophy industry those are the kinds of problems people did with you know that kind of thing these this is not nothing but the difference between having your breakfast cereal with cow milk versus soy milk what the [ __ ] bro like how weak are you you know it like being a vegan today in 2018 it doesn't even require any of the moral fiber that it required you know a few decades ago when when your diet really would have been broccoli and lentils when you couldn't buy like soy ice cream you know like if you didn't make it yourself there was no way you could today you can get it everywhere you know oh oh the difference between coughs cream and soy ice cream I by the way I'm not someone who likes ice cream to begin with I really dislike Cal ice cream anyway you know most of this stuff oh oh life without omelets you know I you know I just I just don't see it I just don't see it and again you know you my girlfriend off-camera she's seen 899 out of my 900 videos at this point it's nothing we could use examples of cocaine but look okay let's let's take the high road here you know what about the yearning to write your own memoir to write your autobiography what about the yearning of the poet to write poetry or to have his poetry find an audience to have recognition for his art form the yearning of the painter to paint there were powerful desires not all of them so dark and terrible just the context of this discussion is supposable giving in to your dark and terrible orders there are things that really drive people I mean I was I was really driven to study Korean a jib way I was really driven to study pally pal he's an obscure language from Southeast Asia a language say nothing about I was really you know driven to do humanitarian work and stuff and when you have those passions this is also very crypto Buddhist of me but you know the more passions you have even if they're there positive socially sanctioned passions they're there you know regarded positively in our society there's a lot of suffering you know there's a lot of suffering on that road we presumably saw that you're passionate about but this this it's it's just so weak to me I can't if these are middle-aged man's sam harris is fully fifty years of age you know okay you're talking to a 12 year old you're talking to a 15 year old and if a 15 year old says to you they don't know if they can live without chocolate ice cream okay bro you're 15 you don't know that much about what living with [ __ ] is like and you don't know that much about what living without [ __ ] is like 50 year old grown-ass man with a PhD and a whole bunch of pretentious publications about Buddhist philosophy written out of his ignorant ass this is really low this is really weak to me like the taste of meat like like a lot of things that we can't justify and it's a question of a combination of self-control and norms that we share that push us away from urges that we cannot justify that is one part of our really briefly I think this is the weakest area philosophy there's a quote from Karl Marx that is in some ways completely untrue where he says the purpose of philosophy is not to describe the world but to change it I do think there is a trap people can fall into where they're offering philosophical generalizations that sort of absolutely no purpose aside from a descriptive one I'm like you know do you want to describe to me what the purpose of a fly belt is in a car engine you know he's like oh yeah how does the drivetrain connect to that no come on my dude this is this is actually the opposite of analysis this is really the opposite of philosophy in the meaningful sense what you're doing here it's one part of our of human nature namely you don't want to be looked down upon by the people you respect can push back against another namely you you enjoy activities that you can't justify that's all he has to [ __ ] say that's all he has to say sorry it's mind blow that's just mind blowing to me but in whatever a lot of work that we can't individually do right so it's it's just it's hard if you had to get up every morning and reinvent civilization for yourself it would be hard to be a civilized person yes if you had to wake up every morning and reinvent civilization that would be hard waking up every morning and saying hmm cow milk on my cereal versus vanilla soy milk on my cereal which one's it gonna be that's really [ __ ] easy it's really [ __ ] easy for a rich pampered piece of [ __ ] famous for no [ __ ] reason Vanity PhD ignorant ass [ __ ] who all makes up [ __ ] about the Pali Canon out of his ass never learned to read the power of language has absolutely no credentials in Buddhist meditation and publishes one pretentious self-indulgent eBook after another because nothing praising the liberal media because apparently he's the only guy who is um pro-gun control and Pro Airport checks and some others just slightly conservative [ __ ] while also being a a theist I me up a public voice for a theater Sam Harris has had the easiest [ __ ] ride in the mainstream media Sam Harris has had less scrutiny than Donald Trump in his election I mean there is no scrutiny of this man's values to the ultimate free ride but he did at several points go out of his way to preach veganism and then went out of his way to backpedal and make excuses for why he couldn't follow through and this is it it would just be so hard to wake up in the morning and reinvent civilization that would be hard and that's wildly irrelevant you're dodging and Sam I don't even know if you really understand what it is you're dodging it couldn't come a time but we will look back on the details of factory farming and it'll be like looking back on in the future we can look back equals factory farming and think about Tim was and you can wake up every morning and drink cow milk and eat steaks for no [ __ ] reason I don't I'm G who can see the hypocrisy in this position the relatively distant past and so morality is something we apply to the distant past got it got it ethics doesn't have to do with the decisions we make over things we can control here in our decisions we can make your renow outcomes we're giving here now it's something we reserve for passing judgment on the distant past deep deep Sam deep so I think there's an interesting ethical wrinkle with respect to the prospect of farming in such a way that the the lives of farm animals are net positive we're really not disputing farming though are we like you don't own a farm Sam and you're not about to influence or change anything on the farm like really this is another dodge you even feel you're well we're we're discussing you as a consumer and you as a self-identified self-styled ethical philosopher and leader what difference you can make and one of the differences you can make right now is it hearing to a vegan diet that you yourself repeatedly said is ethically superior to the dietary choices you make right so that it's better to have it existed as a cow than to have not existed at all and if we have some sense that these are indeed happy cows well then it would be better to raise them and treat them well and then finally eat them then it would be deeply immoral even that perspective do we exist to vindicate the lives of the Bears and the Lions is the purpose of humanity to bring meaning to the lives and deaths of bears and lions and wolves no role is not to imbue their lives with meaning or value our role is to get out of their way and let them live and die in the wild you know to have all the joys and all the sorrows of being wild animals not to have them live in a steel cage under a steel sky where there oh my god forcibly impregnated have their babies stolen from them killed and eaten to be milked etc etc the unspeakable evils effect reforming and also not to have cushions and carpeting added to that concrete floor in the steel factory to make you feel better about your ludicrous impossible to justify dietary choices Sam oh wow he's on the wrong foot he's on the wrong foot to an unbelievable extent you finally eat them than it would be to do not have done any of that and managed to just engineer tofu that is so so healthy that we can live off of it maybe one day in the future he speculates maybe one day they will in contrast to meet in contrast at cheese Oh will we or will scientists ever discovered tofu in the future that's healthier than meat or cheese that's what he's waiting for do you think it's gonna be 2030 you think he's gonna be an old gray man he's your micro think they finally came out with that new tofu I mean it was a close thing I mean like over here you have bacon you just look at the macros and how the bags are being over here you have tofu hmm do you think he's even aware of the extent that he's lying I think he's being dishonest you know most of all with himself you know so I think it's it's it's an interesting ethical problem but I would certainly acknowledge that what we have currently is not like that and that it is a horror show that's a wrap [Music] [Music] evolution