Sam Harris speaks with Frank Ostaseski about death and dying—and about how the awareness of death can improve our lives in each moment. Frank Ostaseski is a Buddhist teacher, international lecturer and a leading voice in end-of-life care. In 1987, he co-founded of the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America. In 2004, he created the Metta Institute to provide innovative educational programs and professional trainings that foster compassionate, mi...
Nov 15, 2017•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kurt Andersen is the bestselling author of the novels Heyday, Turn of the Century, and True Believers. He contributes to Vanity Fair and The New York Times , and is host and co-creator of Studio 360 , the Peabody Award–winning public radio show and podcast. He also writes for television, film, and the stage. Andersen co-founded Spy magazine, served as editor in chief of New York , and was a cultural columnist and criti...
Nov 09, 2017•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Robert Wright is the New York Times bestselling author of The Evolution of God (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Nonzero, The Moral Animal, Three Scientists and their Gods (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the widely respected Bloggingheads.tv and MeaningofLife.tv . He has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Time, Slate, and&...
Oct 30, 2017•2 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, where he is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is the most cited law professor in the United States. From 2009 to 2012 he served in the Obama administration as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He has testified before congressional committees, been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number o...
Oct 17, 2017•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nicholas A. Christakis is a sociologist and physician who conducts research in the area of biosocial science, investigating the biological predicates and consequences of social phenomena. He directs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University, where he is appointed as the Sol Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science, and he is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. Dr. Christakis’ lab is focused on the relationship between social networks and we...
Oct 09, 2017•2 hr 39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Harris speaks with Mark Lilla about the fate of political liberalism in the United States, the emergence of a new identity politics, the role of class in American society, wealth inequality, and other topics. Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and a prizewinning essayist for the New York Review of Books and other publications worldwide. His books include The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction; The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West; The ...
Sep 27, 2017•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. A former Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford (where he received a PhD studying cancer-causing viruses) and from Harvard Medical School. His laboratory focuses on discovering new cancer drugs using innovative biological methods. He has published articles and commentary in...
Sep 20, 2017•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ken Burns and Lynn Novick are two of the most accomplished documentary filmmakers of our time. Their work includes The Civil War, Jazz, Baseball, The War, along with many other acclaimed films. Their most recent project is the ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, The Vietnam War, which tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage f...
Sep 14, 2017•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Thomas K. Metzinger is full professor and director of the theoretical philosophy group and the research group on neuroethics/neurophilosophy at the department of philosophy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. He is the founder and director of the MIND group and Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, Germany. His research centers on analytic philosophy of mind, applied ethics, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. He is the editor of Neural...
Sep 10, 2017•2 hr 52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Joseph Romm is one of the country’s leading communicators on climate science and solutions. He was Chief Science Advisor for “Years of Living Dangerously,” which won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series. He is the founding editor of Climate Progress , which Tom Friedman of the New York Times called “the indispensable blog.” In 2009, Time named him one of its “Heroes of the Environment,” and Rolling Stone put him on its list of 100 &ldquo...
Sep 05, 2017•2 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Max Tegmark is a professor of physics at MIT and the co-founder of the Future of Life Institute . Tegmark has been featured in dozens of science documentaries. He is the author of Our Mathematical Universe and Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Twitter: @Tegmark...
Aug 29, 2017•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Douglas Murray is Associate Editor of the Spectator and writes frequently for a variety of other publications, including the Sunday Times, Standpoint and the Wall Street Journal. He has also given talks at both the British and European Parliaments and at the White House. He is the author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam....
Aug 21, 2017•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast David Pizarro is an associate professor in the department of psychology at Cornell University. His research focuses on how and why humans make moral judgments (such as what makes us think certain actions are wrong, or that some people deserve blame or praise for their actions). He’s also interested in how emotions—especially disgust—influence a wide variety of social, political, and moral judgments. Tamler Sommers is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hou...
Aug 16, 2017•2 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Harris speaks with Robert Sapolsky about the brain and human behavior. They discuss the relationship between reason and emotion, the role of the frontal cortex, the illusion of free will, punishment and retributive justice, neurological disorders and abnormal behavior, the relationship between science and religion, and other topics. Robert Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant. He is the author of A Pr...
Aug 09, 2017•2 hr 38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Harris speaks with Gavin de Becker about the primacy of human intuition in the prediction and prevention of violence, the value of crime statistics, self-defense, stalkers and assassinations, guns, and other topics. Gavin de Becker is a three-time presidential appointee whose pioneering work has changed the way the U.S. government evaluates threats to its highest officials. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on the prediction and management of violence. His fir...
Aug 06, 2017•2 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast David Brooks is one of the nation’s leading writers and commentators. He is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on the PBS NewsHour and Meet the Press . He is the bestselling author of The Social Animal, Bobos in Paradise, and The Road to Character. Twitter: @nytdavidbrooks...
Jul 25, 2017•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Bowden is the author of thirteen books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down . He reported at the Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and now writes for the Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and other magazines. He is also the writer in residence at the University of Delaware. His most recent book is Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam. Article: “How to Deal with North Korea.” The Atlantic. (July/August, 2017)....
Jul 21, 2017•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, one of the most popular comic strips of all time. He has been a full-time cartoonist since 1995, after 16 years as a technology worker for companies like Crocker National Bank and Pacific Bell. His many bestsellers include The Dilbert Principle, Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook, and How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big. His forthcoming book is Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter....
Jul 18, 2017•2 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist whose primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics and biology. He is a Senior Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a distinguished professor at the Sante Fe Institute, where he served as the president from 2005-2009. In 2006 he was named to Time’s list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” He is the author of Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in ...
Jul 14, 2017•2 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Douglas Murray is Associate Editor of the Spectator and writes frequently for a variety of other publications, including the Sunday Times, Standpoint and the Wall Street Journal. He has also given talks at both the British and European Parliaments and at the White House. He is the author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam....
Jul 07, 2017•1 hr 28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kevin Kelly helped launch Wired magazine and was its executive editor for its first seven years. He has written for The New York Times, The Economist, Science, Time, and The Wall Street Journal among many other publications. His previous books include Out of Control, New Rules for the New Economy, Cool Tools, and What Technology Wants. His most recent book is The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future....
Jun 30, 2017•2 hr 40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fareed Zakaria is host of CNN’s flagship international affairs program — Fareed Zakaria GPS — a Washington Post columnist, a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a New York Times bestselling author. He was described in 1999 by Esquire Magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation.” In 2010, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 global thinkers. He is the author of The Future of Freedom, The Post-American World, and In Defense of...
Jun 23, 2017•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Graeme Wood is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has written for The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many other publications. He was the 2014–2015 Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and he teaches in the political science department at Yale University. He is the author of The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State. Twitter: @gcaw...
Jun 15, 2017•2 hr 37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sarah Haider is the co-founder of the Ex-Muslims of North America. Twitter: @SarahTheHaider
Jun 09, 2017•2 hr 45 min•Transcript available on Metacast David Frum is a senior editor at The Atlantic . In 2001–02, he was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Twitter: @davidfrum
Jun 03, 2017•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Before joining the faculty at Yale in 2001, he held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard. He has spent some ten years in Europe, and speaks five and reads ten European languages. He has also written for The New York Revie...
May 29, 2017•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Zeynep Tufekci is a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, and a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She is the author of Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. Twitter: @zeynep...
May 26, 2017•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Harris speaks with Siddhartha Mukherjee about the human desire to understand and manipulate heredity, the genius of Gregor Mendel, the ethics of altering our genes, the future of genetic medicine, patent issues in genetic research, and other topics. Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. A former Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford Unive...
May 22, 2017•2 hr 42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Harris speaks with Anne Applebaum and Juliette Kayyem about the unfolding Russia scandal in the White House.
May 18, 2017•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is it possible that the mindfulness notion of the self being an illusion is itself an illusion? Tell me some real life examples that are good for society and that are informed by Charles Murray's research in the bell curve. Do you think reducing animal suffering is a moral blind spot of modern humans or a moral error? How is Brazilian jiu-jitsu coming? What are your thoughts on Kevin Kelly's article The Myth of Superhuman AI? How do you think your friend the late, great Christopher Hitchens woul...
May 12, 2017•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
