Epistemic Scoundrels Mega-Thread

[Carl-Richard]

Let me leave a reminder that making mega-threads about listing examples of bad things can be a provoker of epistemic scoundrelness and self-deception, as you create a habit of putting up walls between what you like and identify with (and think is you) vs what you don't like and don't think is you. When the "bad" constantly gets put into what is not you, you can become blind to that in yourself. And there should be a virtue (e.g. temperance, balance) that excessive judgement impacts clear judgement.

Maybe a way to combat this is for each example you post, you also post something about yourself. If this mega-thread is indeed a practice meant to benefit you, maybe it could be helpful.

Edited April 17 by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

One's own epistemic scoundrelness is the ultimate example.

[gambler]

To be fair to Leo, he wanted famous people that habitually piss in the epistemic ecosystem, doing irreversible damage. I still think Destiny, Murray and Sam Harris deserve to be listed. Look at the Rohingya Genocide. Buddhists raped tens of thousands of Muslims and killed tens of thousands of them in cold blood because they were exposed to islamphobic content on social media. Content that would get a thumbs of approval from Sam the piece of shit Harris, no doubt. He promoted a far-right Jewish-written conspiracy book called Eurabia where the book, from the early or mid 00s, said that by now French Muslims, without any new immigration, would have taken over France through their birth rate alone. Guys like him birth Destiny who defend an ongoing genocide due to their hate of Islam. Here’s some other bullshit Sam Harris has spread:

”You have a lot of people on the left who are prepared to let white women get raped by Muslim immigrants. There are people who are prepared to be raped themselves.”

“The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.”

Yet these fascists spew the same flavor of venom that the Buddhists in Burma were exposed to on social media.

Fuck Sam Harris, Destiny and Murray all together. 
 

Since I mentioned the author of Eurabia and Sam Harris, maybe Sasha Baron Cohen should do a comedy movie about Jewish elites and intellectuals’ crazed conspiratorial hate-boner for Muzzies. 

Edited April 17 by gambler

[Leo Gura]

40 minutes ago, gambler said:

Fuck Sam Harris, Destiny and Murray all together. 

Harris and Destiny are the opposite of epistemic scoundrels. They take epistemology seriously.

Just because they are wrong on the Palestine issue does not make them scoundrels. No one will be right on every political issue.

Agreement with your political positions is not the measure of scoundrelness. Be care. Do not use this concept to smear everyone who has other points of view than your own. We must allow healthy room for diversity of perspective.

Harris and Destiny are good allies for liberal progressive democracy. Don't throw them away.

Edited April 17 by Leo Gura

[Nemra]

19 hours ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

His youtube have new videos

This one on the need for Rigour in the Pursuit of Truth

 

Ralston calls out Teal Swan for not pursuing truth and for creating a cult following.

Watch the video beginning from the 37:57 timestamp.

[Raze]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Harris and Destiny are the opposite of epistemic scoundrels. They take epistemology seriously.

Just because they are wrong on the Palestine issue does not make them scoundrels. No one will be right on every political issue.

Agreement with your political positions is not the measure of scoundrelness. Be care. Do not use this concept to smear everyone who has other points of view than your own. We must allow healthy room for diversity of perspective.

Harris and Destiny are good allies for liberal progressive democracy. Don't throw them away.

That’s not their only act of bullshit.

Sam Harris thinks we should try to regime change Iran and torture is morally justified.

There is an entire tiktok dedicated to examples of Destiny being a hypocrite

https://www.tiktok.com/@destiny.vs.destiny?

just because they can do a centrist criticism of trump doesn’t make them “important allies”. You can get that on CNN or MSNBC. If anything they turn it into a farce by taking it to the extreme like when Destiny celebrated a trump voter being killed and Sam said he supported a government conspiracy to use illegal methods to stop trump from winning. This type of thing just turns off actual centrists.

Edited April 17 by Raze

[Aaron p]

5 hours ago, Nemra said:

Ralston calls out Teal Swan for not pursuing truth and for creating a cult following.

Watch the video beginning from the 37:57 timestamp.

@integral (<- can't delete)

I don't Wana step on any toes here cuz I recognise that Ralston is valued by many members here, and I recognise that certain teachers have nice sentimental value with memories and core moments of development...

But honestly, and I could be wrong here, it feels like Ralston is a bit epistemically lost himself...just a sense...he talks so much about not talking...you know. I can't even articulate why I feel he is lost in his own epistemology a bit...I just feel it a little

Edited April 17 by Aaron p

[gambler]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Harris and Destiny are the opposite of epistemic scoundrels. They take epistemology seriously.

Just because they are wrong on the Palestine issue does not make them scoundrels. No one will be right on every political issue.

Agreement with your political positions is not the measure of scoundrelness. Be care. Do not use this concept to smear everyone who has other points of view than your own. We must allow healthy room for diversity of perspective.

Harris and Destiny are good allies for liberal progressive democracy. Don't throw them away.

If the red pill bros had only one mistake and that is spreading to the masses, in a sly manner deceitfully cloaked with “empathy”, that women don’t matter, they would definitely be pissing in the epistemic ecosystem because this issue alone is a big issue. Destiny and Sam Harris don’t care about Muslim lives. They are so pernicious with it, and they use empathy to cloak their promotion of Muslim slaughter. Sometimes they aren’t even sly about it. But engaging in a very one-sided campaign that leaves Muslims dehumanized is a big issue. 
 

If the Brits did not give Palestine to the Jews, draw up borders, and all these things, Arab nationalism might’ve not have happened as it was a reaction to being undermined by colonialism; there might’ve not been a Saddam or Assad or Gaddafi. There also wouldn’t have been Hezbollah or Hamas. Iran might’ve not had the powerful incentive to fight against injustices occurring to Muslims, and without the CIA coup, it might’ve remained secular. Without negative western intervention, these areas might’ve been like Armenia or Bosnia today. But does Zestiny and Sam Harris even entertain this possibility? Sam Harris is so narrow minded that he has to insist it’s because of religion. That’s a seriously flawed understanding of the Middle East, but it’s a convenient one because they can do their job in manufacturing consent for the dehumanization of Muslims. Which is why Trump can say he and Bibi are permanently going to relocate Gazans,  and no one from their side flinches. This urination of theirs has real life consequences. It should be no surprise to you that during the Iraq war Destiny defended it until it was no longer relevant, and then forgot why America chose to go to war in Iraq. These are not people who are serious about wanting the best or care about Muslims. They are indifferent to all the justifications of violence they endorse against Muslims. Like the red pill bros hypothetical, going bad in a single big issue, is a big deal.

Edited April 18 by gambler

[Socrates]

If such a person can get an audience, even if this is ragebait, it tells me everything I need to know about the average American.

https://x.com/TheTwinsPod/status/1909732898321879533

Another example of tremendous self-deception:

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1913023872036970612

To be honest, i dont know what would be worse, for them to do it on purpose to manipulate public opinion, or do they believe these things and dont care to be accurate or truthful.

 

[Socrates]

On 4/17/2025 at 5:05 PM, Leo Gura said:

Harris and Destiny are the opposite of epistemic scoundrels

Anyone who isn't against Israel's genocide is an epistemic scoundrel, point blank period.

Perspective on Israel-Palestine is a better litmus test than opinions on Trump.

More potential has someone to be epistemologically sound from a place of liking Trump than agreeing with Israel's genocide.

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Socrates said:

If such a person can get an audience, even if this is ragebait, it tells me everything I need to know about the average American.

https://x.com/TheTwinsPod/status/1909732898321879533

Her Twitter profile says: "Christ is king".

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Socrates said:

Anyone who isn't against Israel's genocide is an epistemic scoundrel, point blank period.

It's a narrow issue, and a particularly tricky one for many people.

Thinking properly about terrorism is difficult for people. It takes serious attention to self-bias.

Terrorism rots people's minds like Covid did.

Edited April 18 by Leo Gura

[Socrates]

25 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Her Twitter profile says: "Christ is king".

It is so sad to witness.

The collective epistemic damage they have inflicted on public opinion her and all the fox-like institutions is equivalent to the plastic there is on the oceans. It will take decades to undo.

The root cause for me is the low quality education system, 95% is reciting.

No political class so kids understand how government ought to work, no psychology class so kids understand behaviour and when pathology starts, no basic logical class so kids understand how to form sound arguments and learn to debate on topic and not appeal to authority nor emotion and most importantly no epistemology class to understand what knowledge is and where to ground it on.

If we had a solid education system, fools like these would never pass through the cracks, and we would autocorrect as a species. But this is wishful thinking since it ain't so.

And now they view education as a "left-wing indoctrination facility". So, even the medicine that would correct this pathology is attacked now. Cancer is attacking cancer medication, who would've thought 🤣

Look at where we are, look at what the white house is tweeting... https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1913241658579440126

[Yimpa]

6 minutes ago, Socrates said:

Look at where we are, look at what the white house is tweeting... https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1913241658579440126

Stealing my playbook… they should hire me 

They will in a future presidency I am just sharpening my skillz in the meantime

Edited April 18 by Yimpa

[Leo Gura]

35 minutes ago, Socrates said:

No political class so kids understand how government ought to work, no psychology class so kids understand behaviour and when pathology starts

I studied AP Government and AP Psychology in high school.

But of course most people don't. And even those classes were not deep enough to fix the epistemic rot.

Edited April 18 by Leo Gura

[Nemra]

34 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I studied AP Government and AP Psychology in high school.

Almost all of the philosophical and political stuff I started learning through your videos.

You have gone to a better school.

Edited April 18 by Nemra

[Norbert Somogyi]

Focusing on the Israel-Palestine issue, it's complicated. Any influential speaker who were to condemn Israel or side by Palestine, would most likely risk their position partially or completely. Look at how impacted were Ye in 2022 (he's crazy that's for sure) or Mel Gibson in 2006, for example. There's no telling how far Bibi's hands reach, but given how Pro-Palestine protests in the US were also forcibly put down (especially since 2023 October), it's further than they are letting on.

There's no way as far as I know, to determine whether these speakers who remain passive at best, personally believe themselves when they are saying this, or constrained one way or another. Food for thought, but I personally believe this goes beyond Epistemic Scoundrelism

[Leo Gura]

On 4/16/2025 at 0:18 PM, Rafael Thundercat said:

 

Ralston is an Epistemic Titan.

This stuff is so obvious to me, so basic, that I don't beat it into you guys enough.

Edited April 18 by Leo Gura

[Nemra]

@Leo Gura, he's so meticulous in his observation.

[integral]

45 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Ralston is an Epistemic Titan.

This stuff is so obvious to me, so basic, that I don't beat it into you guys enough.

Up to the point that you created this thread, no one knew that epistemic self-awareness existed

Few people have asked the question “What is my epistemology?”

Edited April 18 by integral