In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Peter Bergen about the US exit from Afghanistan, the resurgence of the Taliban, and his new book, “The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden.” They discuss the Neo-isolationist consensus on the Right and Left, the legitimacy of our initial involvement in Afghanistan, our ethical obligations to our Afghan allies, Biden’s disastrous messaging, the weakness of the Afghan army, the advantages of the Taliban, the implications for glo...
Aug 22, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Dambisa Moyo about the state of the world. They discuss public goods, economic growth, capitalism, American economic history, bad public-policy choices, inequality, tax avoidance among the wealthy, government inefficiency, the problems with democracy, the breakdown of trust in institutions, failures of transparency, voter participation, future automation and unemployment, identity politics, the reality of racism in America, the problems with...
Aug 13, 2021•2 hr 42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Eric Topol about vaccine hesitancy and related misinformation. They discuss the problem of political and social siloing, concerns about mRNA vaccines, the Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA, the effectiveness of the COVID vaccines, vaccine efficacy vs effectiveness, the Delta variant, the misuse of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), concerns about long-term side effects from vaccines, bad incentives in medicine, ivermect...
Jul 23, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Jeff Hawkins about the nature of intelligence. They discuss how the neocortex creates models of the world, the role of prediction in sensory-motor experience, cortical columns, reference frames, thought as movement in conceptual space, the future of artificial intelligence, AI risk, the “alignment problem,” the distinction between reason and emotion, the “illusory truth effect,” bad outcomes vs existential risk, and o...
Jul 09, 2021•2 hr 36 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with David Buss about the differential mating strategies of men and women. They discuss the controversy that surrounds evolutionary psychology, the denial of sex differences, cross-cultural findings in social science, the replication crisis in psychology, the biological definition of sex, why men and women have affairs, ovulatory shifts in mate preference, sex differences in jealousy and infidelity, the sources of unhappiness in marriage, mate-va...
Jun 25, 2021•2 hr 50 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Jason Fried about the recent controversy over the “no politics” policy at his company Basecamp. They discuss his business philosophy, the surrender of institutions to “social-justice” activism, how politics has acquired a religious fervor, some of the cultural risks of remote work, keeping activists out of one’s company, social media use as analogous to smoking cigarettes, antitrust regulations for big tech, how...
Jun 17, 2021•2 hr 36 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Neil deGrasse Tyson about our place in the universe. They discuss our current understanding of extra-solar planets, the prospect that there is complex life elsewhere in the galaxy, the Fermi problem, the possibility that all advanced civilizations self destruct, how we can detect life on exoplanets, recent media interest in UFOs, whether a direct encounter with alien life would change our world, the flat-Earth conspiracy, the public understa...
Jun 10, 2021•2 hr 53 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Antonio García-Martínez about his recent firing at Apple. They discuss his experience in tech, his book “Chaos Monkeys,” the controversy at Apple, cancel culture, and other topics. Antonio García Martínez is a former early Facebooker, advisor at Twitter, and (very briefly) an employee at Apple before being the object of a petition for his dismissal. His memoir Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random ...
May 26, 2021•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Jesse Singal about a variety of controversial topics. They discuss fragmentation in the media, bad incentives in journalism, Jesse’s encounters with cancel culture, transgender activism, the case of J.K. Rowling, the capture of cultural institutions by the far Left, racism, class inequality, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, whether Jesse should try psychedelics, and other topics. Jesse Singal is the co-host of the podc...
May 21, 2021•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris and David Whyte further explore his work in his book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words . David Whyte is a poet and the author of 11 books of poetry along with four books of prose, including Still Possible , David Whyte: Essentials and The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationships . David holds a degree in Marine Zoology, honorary degrees from Neumann College and Royal Roads University, and has...
May 14, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Michele Gelfand about the difference between tight and loose cultures. They discuss the primacy of cultural norms in governing human behavior, the trade-offs between order and freedom, conservatism vs liberalism, sensitivity to threat, scarcity, the COVID pandemic, the Jeffrey Toobin affair, political polarization, the problem of extreme stereotypes, and other topics. Michele Gelfand is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at t...
Apr 30, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this nearly 4-hour SPECIAL EPISODE , Rob Reid delivers a 100-minute monologue (broken up into 4 segments, and interleaved with discussions with Sam) about the looming danger of a man-made pandemic , caused by an artificially-modified pathogen. The risk of this occurring is far higher and nearer-term than almost anyone realizes. Rob explains the science and motivations that could produce such a catastrophe and explores the steps that society must start taking today to prevent it . These ...
Apr 23, 2021•4 hr 42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Lisa Feldman Barrett about the origins and function of the human brain. They discuss how brains evolved, the myth of the “triune brain,” the brain’s network organization, the predictive nature of perception and action, the construction of emotion, concepts as prescriptions for action, culture as an operating system, and other topics. Lisa Feldman Barrett is University Distinguished Professor of psychology at Northeast...
Apr 21, 2021•2 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Rener Gracie about police procedure and about the special relevance of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for safely controlling resisting suspects. Rener Gracie is a third-generation member of the legendary Gracie Family credited with creating the self-defense system known as Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. He started learning the family craft at two years old, and he was 10 years old when his father created the UFC. Today, Rener is the co-owner and chief instructor...
Apr 16, 2021•2 hr 42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Peter Singer, Francesca Minerva, and Jeff McMahan about the newly launched Journal of Controversial Ideas . They discuss the ethics of discussing dangerous ideas, the possibility of having a market in vaccines, the taboo around the topic of race and IQ, the relationship between activism and academia, the shallow-pond argument for doing good, and other topics. Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University. He focuses on pra...
Apr 12, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast Sam Harris speaks with Bruce Friedrich and Liz Specht from the Good Food Institute about the way the problems of climate change and pandemic risk are directly connected to animal agriculture. The Good Food Institute is an international nonprofit reimagining protein production. Bruce Friedrich oversees GFI’s global strategy, working with the U.S. leadership team and international managing directors to ensure that GFI is maximally effective at implementing prog...
Apr 06, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast
Mar 28, 2021•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with James Fadiman about the psychedelic experience. They discuss who should and shouldn’t take psychedelics, set and setting, the role of a guide, the effects of microdosing, the difference between MDMA and true psychedelics, “good” and “bad” trips, the power of thought, the fiction of a unified self, changing states of self, compassion, and other topics. James Fadiman , Ph.D., has been exploring psychedelics since ...
Mar 23, 2021•2 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris presents his full argument on the illusoriness of free will—and explores its ethical and psychological implications.
Mar 12, 2021•2 hr 30 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam speaks with poet David Whyte about his new and on-going series for the Waking Up app, based on his book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words . With the imagery of a poet and the reflection of a philosopher, David turns his attention to ordinary words, each a doorway into the underlying currents of human life. They discuss 4 tracks from the first installment— Friendship , Honesty , Ambition, and Alone. David Whyt...
Mar 07, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ricky Gervais calls Sam to ask if AI will replace comedians. They also discuss the implications of not having free will and if a chimp has ever asked, “what does it all mean?” They agree that bears are dangerous.
Feb 24, 2021•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Frank Wilczek about the fundamental nature of reality. They discuss the difference between science and non-science, the role of intuition in science, the nature of time, the prospect that possibility is an illusion, the current limits of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, space-time as a substance, the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics in science, the possibility that we might be living in a simulation, the f...
Feb 22, 2021•2 hr 46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ricky Gervais calls to discuss Sam’s monster joke from their last conversation and then other things happen…
Feb 16, 2021•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with mayoral candidate, Andrew Yang, about the future of New York City. Andrew Yang is an entrepreneur, founder of Humanity Forward, and host of the weekly Yang Speaks podcast. Andrew also recently ran as a democratic candidate in the 2020 Presidential primary election. In his early career, Andrew served as the CEO, co-founder or executive at a number of technology and education companies including the well-known test preparation company, Manhatt...
Feb 11, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ricky Gervais calls Sam to ask why we dream? They discuss why puns are terrible and breakdown some of the mechanics of comedy.
Feb 10, 2021•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Iain McGilchrist about the differences between the right and left hemispheres of the human brain. They discuss the evolutionary history of the divided brain, research on surgically divided brains, popular misconceptions about the differences between the hemispheres, the left hemisphere’s propensity for confabulation, the prospect that consciousness might be partitioned in an intact brain, the difference between consciousness and attent...
Feb 05, 2021•3 hr 31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Zeynep Tufekci about the problem of misinformation and group-think. They discuss the Covid-19 pandemic, the early failures of journalists and public health professionals to make sense of it, the sociology of mask wearing, the problem of correcting institutional errors, Covid as a dress rehearsal for something far worse, asymmetric information warfare, failures of messaging about vaccines, the paradox of scientific authority, the power of inc...
Feb 01, 2021•2 hr 40 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Jack Goldstone about the rise in social inequality and political instability in the United States. They discuss how wealth is deployed, the loss of social mobility, comparative judgments of well-being, cosmopolitanism and the isolation of the rich, decreased life expectancy, taxation, the need for government to solve problems, success and social obligation, the causes of revolution, universal basic income (UBI), and other topics. Jack Goldst...
Jan 26, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with General Stanley McChrystal and Chris Fussell about the radicalization of the far Right under Trump. They discuss the events of January 6, 2021, the behavior of the Capitol police, the history of white supremacy in the US, the effect of banning extremists from social media, the logic of insurgency, the consequence of public lies, what should happen to Trump and his enablers, and other topics. Stanley McChrystal retired from the US Army as a f...
Jan 17, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris discusses two dangerous misconceptions about the siege of the Capitol.
Jan 11, 2021•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast