Sam released an episode in which he acknowledged that his bias towards those who had been nice to him (like Dave Rubin) interpersonally meant he had been slow to recognise obvious problems or be critical of their output. In the next episode he had this to say about Megyn Kelly...

Sam is perfectly lucid, aware, and up front about acknowledging his bias in the clip you reference. What do you think you’re adding here?

He's prob not aware of every insane thing she's said recently, to be fair.

It’s remarkable how often this applies to Sam… and how often the person in question is a right wing ideologues. If only there was some way to find out information about people’s views before opining on them.

Why would he? It's not like he was doing an episode on the comparative weight of her soul. Just seems like not a big deal. The worst that happens is he finds out she's gone nuts two weeks from now and is sad for a few moments. It's not like with Musk or Weinstein.

@C_Kavanagh I don’t know how to define big deal. It would be nice if he didn’t make outdated statements on important people who are total poison, literally because (1) she’s always been nice to him, and (2) neither he nor his producer have bothered to keep up with the relevant news.

@C_Kavanagh It is not the ruin of the world, and I don’t at all go for - I guess? - Chris K’s implication that this is some kind of bias toward right-wingers on Sam’s part. There is however obvious bias toward “X was always good to me,” and at this point he should know better.

@C_Kavanagh Like, pick a right-wing loudmouth. How many of them end up being honest accurate people? 1 out of 100? Sam knows this. So he should update his default stance to at least that of caution.

@C_Kavanagh This is fair, but I think it's good practice to not assume someone is a dishonest hack until they prove it. Anyway, even if I grant you everything, there was no harm done here. Even if she was best friends with Sam, as long as he's not agreeing with her it's not that bad.

@C_Kavanagh Like I said elsewhere in this thread, friendships and relationships are complicated. Cutting people off is only necessary if they're harming you personally. Otherwise, you could be a moderating influence.

I'm not clear on the problem here.

The problem is recognising you have a bias and not correcting for it.

How has he not done so here?

What relevance does Megyn Kelly being nice to Sam have to her character or the nature of her output?

He said in that complete segment that she was clearly suffering from audience capture and saying some odious things Sam didn't agree with, but her getting dragged online for pointing out that there's a meaningful difference between a...

five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old was silly. In what way is that being unfair or overly charitable to her because she was nice to Sam in the past?

Ok so what was the context of Megyn making those statements? Why was Megyn making those distinctions? Just bear with me a minute and I’ll get to your questions.

How is that relevant? This was a response to a reader question - Sam isn't white knighting in here unprompted. Someone asked about the distinction Kelly made and getting dragged for it, Sam responded that 1. she's been decent to me but 2. she seems to be suffering audience...

This is really petty and stupid. Nobody needs you to be Sam’s hall monitor. You’re an annoying scold.

Hey you managed to get scold and hall monitor into your moan! You are a good student! Maybe next time you could add something about bad faith actors?

@Ezekial_2517 See this is original!

How is this not true for everybody? i would argue its speak pretty well of Harris that he recognizes this obvious human folly.

It irritates me that people seem to think MK has only recently lost her damn mind. Given she is an avowed Trumpist, she has been twisting herself into a pretzel to justify his actions for some time now. Carlson, etc is only a recent development.

The very thing Sam is discussing in the broader clip is her downplaying Epstein’s crimes because of the association with Trump… which Sam totally ignores as the context for her comments.

It’s smart to have a bias towards those who have shown you kindness. Earnest kindness signals cooperative intent. That signal itself is epistemically relevant, so it is rational to give kind people the benefit of the doubt on that basis alone.

No it’s actually a shit heuristic to assume that people who are nice to you in person are going to be reasonable and thoughtful in their polemical content. Especially when said person is famed as a polemical Fox News personality. News flash: Ideologues can be nice to people.

@RBehiel Are you a robot? Because I'd be an awful slower to give up on a friend than I would be with a stranger. It's entirely reasonable to extend the benefit of the doubt to people you know and like.

@RBehiel Sam doesn’t know Megyn. They’ve interacted a handful of times. Jesus wept.

@RBehiel He does know Megyn. This is something I'd expect you to know if you're going to weigh in on the subject, etc. Did I do it right? You also didn't address the point. Can you offer anything beyond snark? An argument perhaps?

@RBehiel He explains he’s interacted with her a handful of times. And that he doesn’t follow her content. You are talking about heuristics you would apply with close personal friends. It really isn’t complicated.

@JimMacDonaldMMA That’s a difference in degree, not in kind. The heuristic is still directionally the same in both cases, it’s just more powerful with the friend because repeated interactions have provided a clearer signal.

@JimMacDonaldMMA I hope to god you never meet a charming cult leader and/or a motivated sales person / scammer.

Sam has always been an idiot. Sure, he’s an idiot that will occasionally recognize an idiot with like half the brain capacity of a middle school child (@RubinReport for instance), but he’s been ignorant of the morons that he’s surrounded himself with for decades at this point.

That fucking pissed me off He’s clearly not aware of some of the worst shit she’s said recently, like that rant about Tom Homan’s criming; but they themselves mentioned her nonchalance about TCarlson, which one would think would be enough. /

🤦‍♂️

I don’t know as someone whose wife has schizophrenia… I have come to accept behavior from her. That would be absolutely appalling to me when I first met her. I mean, I used to think Megan Kelly was someone I disagreed with a lot, but was an irrational person and now I honestly think she’s a lunatic. And I get why you think Sam should’ve learned his lesson but I don’t know. Maybe he’s working some shit out and should think about it a little more before commenting publicly 🤷‍♂️

I've thought you've been a little unfair to Sam considering the competition, but these types of takes are just dumbfounding, like how many times can an intelligent person make the same mistake, its Megyn Kelly FFS.

I generally like Sam but he has a terrible radar for people like this.

People should quit being nice to him, obviously.

Good to have a strong mind like *checks notes* Dave Rubin in your corner 🫣

We need a third @GurusPod w Sam where you and @ArthurCDent follow up with him on Douglas, Megyn, and of course, Jarron 🤠. But just as you two had HW for the first ep, give him HW for this ep. I’d love to see you and Sam discuss the role of ideology in terror at more length too

Give him time!

ahh yes, the good old circular firing squad is at it again. Never fails.

same with Bill Maher. His podcast seems to be him getting drunk and agreeing with horrible people about "woke" being bad.

Yeah fuck off mate These duplicitous opportunistic, right wing ghouls who'll do & say anything to maximise personal profits Utterly immoral, shameless, hypocrites, as is Sam Harris, who, in Kelly’s case would gleefully watch people murdered without due process to make fkn money

Wow, who would’ve thought. Shame he never learned this in meditation.

I thought he was just recreating the "Jeff Epstein, New York financier" bit at first, to rightful have such contempt for Trump and not identify Megyn Kelly as a sycophantic mouth piece takes some effort surely.

“Whose brain goes totally fucking haywire”. Sounds right for Megyn.

It's a shame Hitch didn't live long enough to completely wash out like the other "Horsemen"

For my friends, it's audience capture. For my enemies, it's bad faith.

He is a fraud.

I thought about this too when he spoke about Megyn Kelly. He needs to do a better job correcting for this bias and realizing the stakes are too high to give people a pass just because they’ve been fair to him at one point.

@megynkelly

I guess when one thinks about it / the social media audience that pays is limited. Only 5% of people I know terminally online and so the pool of grift is limited thus the pressure to be Nazi, or Woke, or Flat Earth or UFO positive is significant for these folk

I don't get it. Was he not critical of her? And that episode came out before her remarks on the boat bombings. Is he not supposed to say anything nice about her at all? When you give credit where credit is due, people tend to take your criticism more seriously.

Now this guy is owned by the Israel Mafia

Sam is retarded.