Making Sense with Sam Harris - Subscriber Content

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Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/390-final-thoughts-on-the-2024-presidential-election Sam Harris speaks with Mark Cuban about the 2024 presidential election. They discuss Trump’s ethics, his apparent political indestructibility, election denialism, the influence of Elon Musk, the strengths and weaknesses of the Harris campaign, the mystery of the southern border, Trump’s immigration and deportation policies, Elon’s trafficking in the “great replacement theory,” Trump’s economic policy, Harris’s tax and healthcare proposals, the effect of tariffs, the US supply chain, the problem of wealth inequality, a proposed tax on unrealized capital gains, support for Israel, a return to normal politics, and other topics. Mark Cuban is an entrepreneur and investor. He is also known for his role in the television series Shark Tank and his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks. He has been an outspoken supporter of the Harris campaign. Twitter: @mcuban Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/389-the-politics-of-risk Sam Harris speaks with Nate Silver about cultural attitudes toward risk and the state of American politics. They discuss the erosion of trust in liberal institutions, polling and political narratives, different camps of cultural elites, the influence of Silicon Valley, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried and the fall of FTX, Gell-Mann amnesia, Christopher Rufo, why Kamala Harris can’t admit to having changed her views, a problem with strict utilitarianism, AI and existential risk, what people misunderstand about election forecasting, which news events have affected the 2024 race, how current polls might be misleading, public vs. private polling, undecided and marginal voters, Gen Z, the gender divide, the likelihood that Trump won’t accept the election results if he loses, election integrity in the swing states, the chance of a landslide, the prospect of public unrest, and other topics. Nate Silver is a statistician, writer, and poker player. He is the founder of FiveThirtyEight and author of the New York Times best sellers The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don't and On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything. He writes the Substack Silver Bulletin. Twitter: @NateSilver538 Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/388-what-is-life Sam Harris speaks with Sara Imari Walker about a scientific understanding of life. They discuss the contributions of physics to this topic, Erwin Schrödinger, the inadequacy of standard definitions of life, the prospect of "artificial" life, the role of information, constructor theory, assembly theory, the space of all possible structures, a "block universe," the existence of abstract objects like numbers, the Fermi paradox, the likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe, experiments that could decide how likely life is to emerge, the possibility of a Great Filter, the number of Earth-like worlds, and other topics. Sara Imari Walker is an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist. She is the deputy director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. She is also a fellow of the Berggruen Institute and a member of the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. She is a recipient of the Stanley L. Miller Early-Career Award for her research on the origin of life, and her research team at ASU is internationally regarded as being among the leading labs aiming to build a fundamental theory for understanding what life is. Her research has been featured in Scientific American, Quanta Magazine, and a variety of other international outlets. Her book, Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence, is available now. Website: https://search.asu.edu/profile/1731899 Twitter: @Sara_Imari Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/387-politics-power Sam Harris speaks with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel about the state of world order and American politics. They discuss the mystery of Japan’s economic health, U.S. competition with China, possible conflict over Taiwan and the Philippines, the significance of the South China Sea, the history of the Japan-U.S. friendship, how the Democratic Party lost its way, immigration, whether Vice President Harris needs a “Sister Souljah moment,” whether she should explain her changes of position better than she has, the standing of Israel in the eyes of the world, antisemitism, the Abraham Accords, Hamas, the West Bank, the influence of the religious right in Israel, a possible war with Iran, Netanyahu and Israeli security, a two-state solution, whether a Harris administration would reliably support Israel, and other topics. Rahm Emanuel is currently the U.S. ambassador to Japan. He was a senior advisor to President Bill Clinton before being elected to represent Illinois in the House of Representatives in 2003. He was also President Barack Obama’s chief of staff from 2009 to 2010. In 2011, he was elected mayor of Chicago, where he served until 2019. Twitter: @RahmEmanuel, @USAmbJapan Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/386-information-social-order Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about his new book, Nexus, and its application to current crises. They discuss humanity’s capacity for self-destruction, democracy and dictatorship as information networks, the “naive view of information,” the advantages of fiction over truth, trust in institutions, self-correction in a democracy, truth vs. power, truth vs. order, the suicide of conservatism, fixing social media, algorithms as editorial choices, efficiency vs. inefficiency, threats to democracy, the authoritarian character of Trump’s candidacy, the need for patriotism and nationalism, Israeli politics, the peaceful transfer of power, Putin and the war in Ukraine, the vulnerability of world order, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, antisemitism and anti-colonialism, religious fanaticism among Israelis, the status of Arabs in Israeli society, biblical and post-biblical Judaism, whether a wider war in the Middle East is necessary, the danger of spirituality without ethics, and other topics. Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, the series Sapiens: A Graphic History and Unstoppable Us, and, most recently, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. His books have sold over 45 million copies in 65 languages, and he is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals today. Website: https://www.ynharari.com/ Twitter: @harari_yuval Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/385-ai-utopia Sam Harris speaks with Nick Bostrom about ongoing progress in artificial intelligence. They discuss the twin concerns about the failure of alignment and the failure to make progress, why smart people don’t perceive the risk of superintelligent AI, the governance risk, path dependence and "knotty problems," the idea of a solved world, Keynes’s predictions about human productivity, the uncanny valley of utopia, the replacement of human labor and other activities, meaning and purpose, digital isolation and plugging into something like the Matrix, pure hedonism, the asymmetry between pleasure and pain, increasingly subtle distinctions in experience, artificial purpose, altering human values at the level of the brain, ethical changes in the absence of extreme suffering, our cosmic endowment, longtermism, problems with consequentialism, the ethical conundrum of dealing with small probabilities of large outcomes, and other topics. Nick Bostrom is a professor at Oxford University, where he is the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He is the author of more than 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias (2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (2008), Human Enhancement (2009), and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014), a New York Times bestseller which sparked the global conversation about the future of AI. His work has framed much of the current thinking around humanity’s future (such as the concept of existential risk, the simulation argument, the vulnerable world hypothesis, astronomical waste, and the unilateralist’s curse). He has been on Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list twice, and was the youngest person to rank among the top 15 in Prospect’s World Thinkers list. He has an academic background in theoretical physics, AI, computational neuroscience, and philosophy. His most recent book is Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World. Website: https://nickbostrom.com/ Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/384-stress-testing-our-democracy Sam Harris speaks with Barton Gellman about election integrity and the safeguarding of American democracy. They discuss the war games he's run to test our response to an authoritarian president, using federal troops against American citizens, the difference between laws and norms, state powers to resist the federal government, voter identification and election integrity, political control over election certifications, the Bush-Gore election, the Electoral Count Reform Act, the prospect of public unrest after the November election, January 6th, George Soros, the "good people on both sides" calumny against Trump, what happens to Trump and Trumpism if Harris wins in November, the presidential debate with Harris, the authoritarian potential of a second Trump term, Project 2025, and other topics. Barton Gellman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. He currently serves as Senior Advisor at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Atlantic and The Washington Post. He is the author of Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State and Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, for which he won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Website: bartongellman.com Twitter: @bartongellman Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/383-where-are-the-grown-ups Sam Harris talks about the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the cesspool of X, Tucker Carlson’s conversation with Darryl Cooper, freedom of speech, and other topics. Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/382-the-eye-of-nature Sam Harris speaks with Richard Dawkins about his new book The Genetic Book of the Dead, the genome as a palimpsest, what scientists of the future may do with genetic information, genotypes and phenotypes, embryology and epigenetics, why the Lamarckian theory of acquired characteristics couldn't be true, how environmental selection pressure works, why evolution is hard to think about, human dependence on material culture, the future of genetic enhancement of human beings, viral DNA, symbiotic bacteria, AI and the future of scholarship, resurrecting extinct species, the problem of free speech in the UK, the problem of political Islam and antisemitism in the UK, reflections on Dan Dennett, and other topics. Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and a best-selling author. He is celebrated globally for his unwavering critique of religion and his commitment to critical thinking. His books include The Ancestor’s Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, Unweaving the Rainbow, A Devil’s Chaplain, The God Delusion, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Magic of Reality, his two-part autobiography An Appetite for Wonder and Brief Candle in the Dark, and Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide. His final book tour, “An Evening with Richard Dawkins,” is currently underway. Website: richarddawkinstour.com Twitter: @RichardDawkins Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/381-delusions-right-and-left Sam Harris speaks with “Destiny” (Steven Bonnell) about politics and public debate. They discuss how he approaches debate, “Trump derangement syndrome,” January 6th, why Trump’s norm violations don’t matter to many people, misadventures on the information landscape, social media and the problem of being too online, Islam and conflict in the Middle East, the difference between the far left and the far right, the lack of sane conservative policies to counterbalance the left, whether the pendulum is swinging back on the left, the ethics and politics of apology, private friendships and public disagreements, and other topics. Steven Bonnell, otherwise known as Destiny, is a YouTuber and political streamer. His commentary on politics and culture has made him almost ubiquitous online, where he stirs up controversy on both the right and the left. He grew up in a conservative Catholic household, and now spends much of his time arguing against American conservatism. He’s debated many controversial figures, such as Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes. Website: www.destiny.gg Twitter: @TheOmniLiberal Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/380-the-roots-of-attention Sam Harris speaks with Amishi Jha about attention and the brain. They discuss how attention is studied, the failure of brain-training games, the relationship between attention and awareness, mindfulness as an intrinsic mental capacity, the neurological implications of different types of meditation, the neural correlates of attention and distraction, the prospects of self-transcendence, the link between thought and emotion, the difference between dualistic and nondualistic mindfulness, studying nondual awareness in the lab, the influence of smartphones, the value of mind wandering, and other topics. Dr. Amishi Jha, PhD, is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami. She serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, which she cofounded in 2010. She received her PhD from the University of California, Davis, and did postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University. Her work has been featured at NATO, the World Economic Forum, and the Pentagon, and she’s been covered in The New York Times, NPR, Time magazine, and Forbes. With grants from the Department of Defense and several private foundations, she leads research on the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, resilience, and performance. Dr. Jha’s national bestseller, Peak Mind, describes her work with a variety of high-demand groups, from special forces, elite athletes, and first responders, to teachers, business and medical professionals, and students. Her forthcoming app, Pushups for the Mind, will be available to U.S. military service members in the fall of 2024, and for public release in early 2025. Website: https://amishi.com/ Twitter: @amishijha Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/379-regulating-artificial-intelligence Sam Harris speaks with Yoshua Bengio and Scott Wiener about AI risk and the new bill introduced in California intended to mitigate it. They discuss the controversy over regulating AI and the assumptions that lead people to discount the danger of an AI arms race. Yoshua Bengio is full professor at Université de Montréal and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila - Quebec AI Institute. Considered one of the world’s leaders in artificial intelligence and deep learning, he is the recipient of the 2018 A.M. Turing Award with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun, known as the Nobel Prize of computing. He is a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, a member of the UN’s Scientific Advisory Board for Independent Advice on Breakthroughs in Science and Technology, and Chair of the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI. Website: https://yoshuabengio.org/ Scott Wiener has represented San Francisco in the California Senate since 2016. He recently introduced SB 1047, a bill aiming to reduce the risks of frontier models of AI. He has also authored landmark laws to, among other things, streamline the permitting of new homes, require insurance plans to cover mental health care, guarantee net neutrality, eliminate mandatory minimums in sentencing, require billion-dollar corporations to disclose their climate emissions, and declare California a sanctuary state for LGBTQ youth. He has lived in San Francisco's historically LGBTQ Castro neighborhood since 1997. Twitter: @Scott_Wiener Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/378-digital-delusions Sam Harris speaks with Renée DiResta about the state of our information landscape. They discuss the difference between influence and propaganda, shifts in communication technology, influencers and closed communities, the asymmetry of passion online and the illusion of consensus, the unwillingness to criticize one's own side, audience capture, what we should have learned from the Covid pandemic, what is unique about vaccines, Renée's work at the Stanford Internet Observatory, her experience of being smeared by Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, Elon Musk and the Twitter files, the false analogy of social media as a digital public square, the imagined "censorship-industrial complex," the 2024 presidential election, and other topics. Renée DiResta is a social media researcher and the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. Her work focuses on adversarial abuse online, including child safety issues, spammers and scammers, and influence campaigns run by state actors. From 2019 to 2023, she was the Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching, and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies. Renée has advised Congress and the executive branch, as well as academic, civic, and business organizations on technology policy and trust & safety topics, including information operations, generative AI, election security, data transparency, and child safety. Website: reneediresta.com Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/377-the-future-of-psychedelic-medicine Sam Harris speaks with Dr. Jennifer Mitchell and Dr. Sarah Abedi about recent developments in research on psychedelics. They discuss the history of this research and the war on drugs, recent setbacks in the FDA approval process, MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the challenges of conducting this research, allegations of therapist misconduct, new therapeutic models for mental health treatment, psychoneuroimmunology, "non-psychedelic" psychedelics, good and bad trips, the FDA's coming decision on MDMA-assisted therapy, "right-to-try" policies for pharmaceuticals, the role of psychedelic therapists, the problem of having all this therapeutic work being done underground, and other topics. Petition to approve MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD: https://www.approvemdmatherapy.com/ Dr. Jennifer Mitchell is a professor in the UCSF Department of Neurology and Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the San Francisco VA. Her research focuses on identifying and developing novel therapeutics for drug and alcohol abuse, PTSD, stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as on understanding the neural mechanisms responsible for these disorders. Dr. Mitchell has extensive and diverse experience with human and animal pharmacology, hypothesis-driven neuroscience, human proof-of-concept studies, and clinical trials. For the past few years, her work has centered around the development of psychedelic medicines for a broad range of mental health conditions, including PTSD. Website: https://profiles.ucsf.edu/jennifer.mitchell Dr. Sarah Abedi is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and psychedelic facilitator for clinical trials. She has worked as a psychedelic facilitator at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute and is set to join the psilocybin and mindfulness study at the USC Center for Mindfulness Science. She works on policy change to expand funding for mental health research. She served as Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Campaign Manager for TREAT California, a citizen-driven ballot initiative aimed at establishing a $5 billion funding agency to explore novel therapeutics, including psychedelics. Currently, Dr. Abedi is the Chief Medical Officer of TREAT Humanity, an organization dedicated to advancing the research of mental health therapeutics, including psychedelics, through enhanced funding mechanisms. Website: www.sarahabedimd.com Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/376-how-democracies-fail Sam Harris and Anne Applebaum discuss the nature of modern autocracies and how democracies fail. They discuss the power of ideas, why autocracies seek to undermine democracies, cooperation among dictators, how Western financial experts and investors have enabled autocracies, how Putin came to power, the failure of engagement and investment to create political change, what’s at stake in the war in Ukraine, Trump’s charisma, the current symptoms of American democratic decline, the ideologues around Trump, the hollowing out of institutions, how things might unravel in America, anti-liberal tendencies in American politics, the role of social media, the different pathologies on the Left and Right, analogies to Vichy France, the weakness of the Democrats, the political effects of the assassination attempt on former President Trump, and other topics. Anne Applebaum is a historian, journalist, and staff writer at The Atlantic. She was a columnist for The Washington Post for 17 years. She is the author of five critically acclaimed books: Twilight of Democracy, Red Famine, Iron Curtain, Between East and West, and Gulag, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. She divides her time between Poland, where her husband is foreign minister, and Washington D.C. Her newest book is Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Website: anneapplebaum.com Twitter: @anneapplebaum

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/375-on-the-attempted-assassination-of-president-trump

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/374-consciousness-and-the-physical-world Sam Harris speaks with Christof Koch about the nature of consciousness. They discuss Christof’s development as a neuroscientist, his collaboration with Francis Crick, change blindness and binocular rivalry, sleep and anesthesia, the limits of physicalism, non-locality, brains as classical systems, conscious AI, idealism and panpsychism, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), what it means to say something “exists,” the illusion of the self, brain bridging, Christof’s experience with psychedelics, and other topics. Christof Koch is a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute and the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. He is the former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and a former professor at the California Institute of Technology. He writes regularly for Scientific American and is the author of five books, most recently Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It. Website: https://christofkoch.com/ Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/373-anti-zionism-is-antisemitism Sam Harris speaks with Michal Cotler-Wunsh about the global rise of antisemitism. They discuss the bias against Israel at the United Nations, the nature of double standards, the precedent set by Israel in its conduct in the war in Gaza, the shapeshifting quality of antisemitism, anti-Zionism as the newest strain of Jew hatred, the “Zionism is racism” resolution at the U.N., the lie that Israel is an apartheid state, the notion that Israel is perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinians, the Marxist oppressed-oppressor narrative, the false moral equivalence between the atrocities committed by Hamas and the deaths of noncombatants in Gaza, the failure of the social justice movement to respond appropriately to events in Israel, what universities should have done after October 7th, reclaiming the meanings of words, extremism vs civilization, and other topics. Michal Cotler-Wunsh is Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism. She is a prominent public speaker, author, researcher, and independent policy and strategy advisor on intersecting issues of antisemitism, law, human rights, and Zionism. Michal was a member of Israel’s 23rd Knesset, where she chaired the Addictions Committee & Subcommittee for Israel-Diaspora Relations, was a member of the Foreign Affairs & Security, Constitution, and Law & Justice committees, and co-founded the Interparliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism. Michal is a Trustee in the Rabbi Sacks Legacy. Twitter: @cotlerwunsh

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/372-life-work Sam Harris speaks with George Saunders about his creative process. They discuss George’s involvement with Buddhism, the importance of kindness, psychedelics, writing as a practice, the work of Raymond Carver, the problem of social media, our current political moment, the role of fame in American culture, Wendell Berry, fiction as way of exploring good and evil, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, missed opportunities in ordinary life, what it means to be a more loving person, his article “The Incredible Buddha Boy,” the prison of reputation, Tolstoy, and other topics. George Saunders was born in Amarillo, Texas, and raised in Chicago. He is the author of twelve books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Booker Prize for the best work of fiction in English, and Tenth of December, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the author of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, a book about the Russian short story. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He has taught in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University since 1997. Website: https://georgesaundersbooks.com/about-george-saunders Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/371-what-the-hell-is-happening Sam Harris speaks to Bill Maher about the state of the world. They discuss the aftermath of October 7th, the cowardice and confusion of many celebrities, gender apartheid, the failures of the Biden campaign, Bill’s relationship to his audience, the differences between the left and right, Megyn Kelly, loss of confidence in the media, expectations for the 2024 election, the security concerns of old-school Republicans, the prospect of a second Trump term, totalitarian regimes, functioning under medical uncertainty, Bill’s plan to stop doing stand-up (maybe), looking back on his career, his experience of fame, Jerry Seinfeld, and other topics. Bill Maher has been on TV for 30 years. His new book What This Comedian Said Will Shock You reached number one on the NYT bestseller list. Watch his podcast Club Random on Youtube or listen everywhere. Website: billmaher.com Twitter: @billmaher Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/370-gender-apartheid-and-the-future-of-iran In today’s housekeeping, Sam explains his digital business model. He and Yasmine Mohammed (co-host) then speak with Masih Alinejad about gender apartheid in Iran. They discuss the Iranian revolution, the hypocrisy of Western feminists, the morality police and the significance of the hijab, the My Stealthy Freedom campaign, kidnapping and assassination plots against Masih, lack of action from the U.S. government, the effect of sanctions, the cowardice of Western journalists, the difference between the Iranian population and the Arab street, the unique perspective of Persian Jews, Islamism and immigration, the infiltration of universities, and other topics. Yasmine Mohammed is the founder and president of Free Hearts Free Minds, a nonprofit charity that provides mental health support for freethinkers living in Muslim-majority countries—where the 'crime' of renouncing religion can be punished by execution. ​Her book, Unveiled, is a memoir that recalls her experiences growing up in a fundamentalist Islamic household and her arranged marriage to a member of Al-Qaeda. In it, she sheds light on the religious trauma that so many women are still unable to discuss. Unveiled has been translated into fifteen languages so far, including German, Finnish, Catalan, Swedish, French, Farsi, Arabic, Indonesian, Urdu, Spanish, and Italian. Copies of her book in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and Indonesian can be accessed here for free, courtesy of The Richard Dawkins Foundation. She is also the host of the Yasmine Mohammed Podcast, where she has conversations with inspirational people from restrictive religious or cult backgrounds who have fought and overcome. Website: www.yasminemohammed.com Twitter: @yasmohammedxx Masih Alinejad is an Iranian-American journalist, a women’s rights campaigner, and the author of the best-selling memoir The Wind in My Hair. In 2023, TIME named Alinejad one of the Women of the Year, and she was elected President of the World Liberty Congress. She is one of the most prominent and vocal figures challenging the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2014, she launched the My Stealthy Freedom campaign against compulsory hijab, which became the largest civil disobedience movement in the history of the Islamic Republic. Today, Masih continues to write and host Tablet, a satirical weekly show on VOA, and is campaigning to #EndGenderApartheid in Iran and Afghanistan. Website: https://worldlibertycongress.org/ Twitter: @AlinejadMasih

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/369-escaping-death Sam Harris speaks with Sebastian Junger about danger and death. They discuss Sebastian's career as a journalist in war zones, the connection between danger and meaning, his experience of nearly dying from a burst aneurysm in his abdomen, his lingering trauma, the concept of "awe," psychedelics, near-death experiences, atheism, psychic phenomena, consciousness and the brain, and other topics. Sebastian Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of Tribe, War, Freedom, A Death in Belmont, Fire, and The Perfect Storm, and co-director of the documentary film Restrepo, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He is also the winner of a Peabody Award and the National Magazine Award for Reporting. His most recent book is In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife. Website: https://www.sebastianjunger.com/ Twitter: @sebastianjunger Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/368-freedom-censorship Sam Harris speaks with Greg Lukianoff about free speech and cancel culture. They discuss the origins of political correctness, free speech and its boundaries, the bedrock principle of the First Amendment, technology and the marketplace of ideas, epistemic anarchy, social media and cancellation, comparisons to McCarthyism, self-censorship by professors, cancellation from the Left and Right, justified cancellations, the Hunter Biden laptop story, how to deal with Trump in the media, the state of higher education in America, and other topics. Greg Lukianoff is the President & CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He earned his undergraduate degree from American University and his law degree from Stanford, and he worked for the ACLU of Northern California and other organizations before joining FIRE in 2001. He is one of America’s most passionate defenders of free speech. He has written about the issue in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He also co-wrote The Coddling of the American Mind with Jonathan Haidt and, most recently, The Canceling of the American Mind with Rikki Schlott. Website: http://thefire.org, https://greglukianoff.substack.com/ Twitter: @glukianoff Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/367-campus-protests-antisemitism-and-western-values Sam Harris discusses the recent protests on college campuses, why focusing narrowly on the problem of "antisemitism" will be counterproductive, widespread confusion about the threat of Islamic extremism, and the necessary defense of Western values.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/366-urban-warfare-2-0 Sam Harris speaks with John Spencer about the reality of urban warfare and Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza. They discuss the nature of the Hamas attacks on October 7th, what was most surprising about the Hamas videos, the difficulty in distinguishing Hamas from the rest of the population, combatants as a reflection of a society's values, how many people have been killed in Gaza, the proportion of combatants and noncombatants, the double standards to which the IDF is held, the worst criticism that can be made of Israel and the IDF, intentions vs results, what is unique about the war in Gaza, Hamas's use of human shields, what it would mean to defeat Hamas, what the IDF has accomplished so far, the destruction of the Gaza tunnel system, the details of underground warfare, the rescue of hostages, how noncombatants become combatants, how difficult it is to interpret videos of combat, what victory would look like, the likely aftermath of the war, war with Hezbollah, Iran's attack on Israel, what to do about Iran, and other topics. John Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, and combat veteran. He currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast. He is also a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare. John served 25 years in the U.S. Army, having held ranks from Private to Sergeant First Class and Second Lieutenant to Major. He was an active duty Army officer during two combat tours in Iraq. His research focuses on military operations in dense urban areas, megacities, and urban and subterranean warfare. Spencer holds a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University, and his writings have appeared in the Time magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and many other publications. He is considered one of the world’s leading experts on urban warfare and has served as an advisor to everyone from top four-star generals to world leaders. He is the coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare. Website: www.johnspenceronline.com Twitter: @SpencerGuard Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/365-reality-check Sam Harris begins by remembering his friendship with Dan Dennett. He then speaks with David Wallace-Wells about the shattering of our information landscape. They discuss the false picture of reality produced during Covid, the success of the vaccines, how various countries fared during the pandemic, our preparation for a future pandemic, how we normalize danger and death, the current global consensus on climate change, the amount of warming we can expect, the consequence of a 2-degree Celsius warming, the effects of air pollution, global vs local considerations, Greta Thunberg and climate catastrophism, growth vs degrowth, market forces, carbon taxes, the consequences of political stagnation, the US national debt, the best way to attack the candidacy of Donald Trump, and other topics. David Wallace-Wells is a best-selling science writer and essayist who focuses on climate change, technology, and the future of the planet and how we live on it. David has been a National Fellow with the New America Foundation, a columnist and deputy editor of the New York Magazine, and was previously at The Paris Review. Currently, David is a writer for The New York Times and a columnist for the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. Twitter: @dwallacewells Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/364-facts-values Sam Harris revisits the central argument he made in his book, The Moral Landscape, about the reality of moral truth. He discusses the way concepts like “good” and “evil” can be thought about objectively, the primacy of our intuitions of truth and falsity, and the unity of knowledge. Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/363-knowledge-work Sam Harris speaks with Cal Newport about our use of information technology and the cult of productivity. They discuss the state of social media, the "academic-in-exile effect," free speech and moderation, the effect of the pandemic on knowledge work, slow productivity, the example of Jane Austen, managing up in an organization, defragmenting one's work life, doing fewer things, reasonable deadlines, trading money for time, finding meaning in a post-scarcity world, the anti-work movement, the effects of artificial intelligence on knowledge work, and other topics. Cal Newport is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University where he is also a founding member of the Center for Digital Ethics. In addition to his academic work, Newport is a New York Times bestselling author who writes for a general audience about the intersection of technology, productivity, and culture. His most recent book is called Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout. His books have sold millions of copies and been translated into over forty languages. He is also a contributor to The New Yorker and hosts the popular Deep Questions podcast. Newport lives with his wife and three sons in Takoma Park, Maryland. Website: https://calnewport.com/ Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/362-six-months-of-war Sam Harris and Josh Szeps (episode co-host) speak with Douglas Murray about the ongoing war in Gaza. They discuss public opinion about the war, the prospect of a widening conflict with Hezbollah and Iran, whether the Iron Dome was a mistake, the sentiments of Israeli Arabs, the global problem of Islamism, the risk of a resurgent right-wing in Europe, the crisis at the southern border in the US, and other topics. Douglas Murray is the associate editor of The Spectator and writes frequently for a variety of other publications, including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and The Sun. He has also given talks at both the British and European Parliaments and at the White House. He is the author of several books including The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, The Madness of Crowds, and most recently, The War on the West. Website: https://douglasmurray.net/ Twitter: @DouglasKMurray Josh Szeps is an independent journalist. In New York City he was a founding host of HuffPost Live, the multi-award-winning streaming talk network, where he hosted thousands of hours of live TV with the world’s biggest names. In his native Australia, he hosted a national morning television show and had a talk radio show on the public broadcaster, ABC Radio. Josh left legacy media to focus on having bullshit-free conversations about provocative issues on his own platform, Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps, a podcast, live events operation, and YouTube channel. Website: https://bit.ly/UC_substack Twitter: @joshzepps Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/361-sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism Sam Harris speaks with William MacAskill about the implosion of FTX and the effect that it has had on the Effective Altruism movement. They discuss the logic of “earning to give,” the mind of SBF, his philanthropy, the character of the EA community, potential problems with focusing on long-term outcomes, AI risk, the effects of the FTX collapse on Will personally, and other topics. William MacAskill is an associate professor of moral philosophy at Oxford University, and author of Doing Good Better, Moral Uncertainty, and What We Owe The Future. He cofounded the nonprofits 80,000 Hours, Centre for Effective Altruism, and Giving What We Can, and helped to launch the effective altruism movement, which encourages people to use their time and money to support the projects that are most effectively making the world a better place. Website: ​​www.williammacaskill.com Twitter: @willmacaskill Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/360-we-really-dont-have-free-will Sam Harris speaks with Robert Sapolsky about the widespread belief in free will. They discuss the limits of intuition, the views of Dan Dennett, complexity and emergence, downward causation, abstraction, epigenetics, predictability, fatalism, Benjamin Libet, the primacy of luck, historical change in attitudes about free will, implications for ethics and criminal justice, the psychological satisfaction of punishing bad people, understanding evil, punishment and reward as tools, meritocracy, the consequences of physical beauty, the logic of reasoning, and other topics. Robert M. Sapolsky is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate’s Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, and most recently, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will. His book titled Behave was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.” He and his wife live in San Francisco. Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/359-getting-used-to-it Sam Harris speaks with Cass Sunstein about habituation and its consequences. They discuss habituation to positive and negative experiences, marriage, happiness, meaning, variety, doing good vs feeling good, midlife crises, kids, wealth and happiness, things vs experience, the “illusory truth effect,” misinformation and social media, echo chambers and extremism, what governments can do to respond to misinformation, free speech on college campuses, the 2024 Presidential election, and other topics. 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 of nations, and written many articles and books, including Nudge (with Richard Thaler), #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media, Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide, Too Much Information, Noise (with Daniel Kahneman and Olivier Sibony), and most recently Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There (with Tali Sharot). He is now working on a variety of projects involving the regulatory state, fake news, and freedom of speech. Website: https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/cass-r-sunstein/ Twitter: @CassSunstein Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/358-the-war-in-ukraine Sam Harris speaks with Yaroslav Trofimov about the War in Ukraine. They discuss the widespread false assumptions that Russia would win a swift victory, Ukrainian attitudes toward Russia, the transformation of the Ukrainian military, Russian incompetence, Russian public opinion, the Azov Battalion and the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine, the role of the Orthodox Church, conspiracy thinking and Russian propaganda, Putin’s popularity on the Right, NATO membership, the Minsk 2 agreement, alleged failures of Western diplomacy, Zelensky’s leadership, the moral clarity of the war, Russian war crimes, the new cult of WW2 victory in Russia, the numbers of casualties and displaced people in Ukraine, delays in US aid to Ukraine, nuclear blackmail, long-range weaponry, the weakness of western sanctions, the sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline, how the war might end, the complicated prospects of a Trump presidency, and other topics. Yaroslav Trofimov is the chief foreign-affairs correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and the author of several books including Faith at War, Siege of Mecca, and most recently, Our Enemies Will Vanish. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and educated at New York University, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2023, for his work on Ukraine, and in 2022, for his work on Afghanistan. His honors include an Overseas Press Club award for coverage of India as well as the Washington Institute gold medal for the best book on the Middle East. Website: www.yarotrof.com Twitter: @yarotrof

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/357-america-world-order Sam Harris speaks with Bret Stephens about America’s place in the world. They discuss the waning Pax Americana, American isolationism, Republican fondness for Putin, Tucker Carlson, why America should support Ukraine, the significance of Alexei Navalny, what it would mean to properly hold Putin responsible for his death, nuclear blackmail, valid criticisms of Israel, the war in Gaza, Palestinian public opinion, the need for total military defeat, a two-state solution, the isolation of Israel at the UN and the International Criminal Court of Justice, waning support for the war in the Biden Administration, Hezbollah and war with Iran, Israeli politics and the settlements in the West Bank, charges of “settler colonialism,” antisemitism as a series of double standards, the prospect of a Trump victory in 2024, Biden’s age problem, the crisis at the southern border, U.S. immigration policy, and other topics. Bret Stephens is an opinion columnist with The New York Times and editor-in-chief of Sapir, a new Jewish quarterly. He has previously served as editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post and as foreign affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, for which he won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Stephens was raised in Mexico City and studied political philosophy at the University of Chicago and comparative politics at the London School of Economics. In 2022 he was banned for life by the government of Russia from ever visiting that country. Website: https://www.nytimes.com/column/bret-stephens Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/356-islam-freedom Sam Harris and Rory Stewart debate whether Islam poses a unique threat to open societies. Rory Stewart is a leading thinker on international affairs and development currently serving as Special Advisor to GiveDirectly, which delivers cash directly to the world’s poorest households. Stewart was a member of the British Parliament for almost a decade, where he served as secretary of state for international development, prisons minister, minister for Africa, development minister for the Middle East and Asia, and minister for the environment. In addition to his work with GiveDirectly, Rory Stewart is also the co-host of The Rest is Politics podcast and author of How Not to Be a Politician. Website: https://www.givedirectly.org/ Twitter: @RoryStewartUK Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/355-a-falling-world Sam Harris speaks with Peter Zeihan about the unraveling world order. They discuss the Bretton Woods system, America’s role in securing the global supply chain, the coming end of American security guarantees, the shrinking of the US Navy, Houthi terrorism, deterring Iran, conflict in the Middle East, the future of Israel, the limits of immigration, the demographic pyramid, the demise of Europe, the war in Ukraine, the prospect of nuclear war, demographic collapse in China, loose nukes, America’s relative immunity to the world’s chaos, U.S. debt, the U.S. Southern border and immigration policy, why Trump will not win the 2024 election, and other topics. Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist and a global energy demographic and security expert. Over the course of his career, Peter has worked for the US State Department in Australia, the DC think tank community, and helped develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies. In 2012, Peter founded his own firm, Zeihan on Geopolitics, in order to provide a select group of clients with direct, custom analytical products. Today those clients represent a vast array of sectors including energy majors, financial institutions, business associations, agricultural interests, universities, and the U.S. military. Peter is a critically acclaimed author whose first two books — The Accidental Superpower and The Absent Superpower — have been recommended by Mitt Romney, Fareed Zakaria, and Ian Bremmer. His other books include Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World and The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. Website: https://zeihan.com/ Twitter: @PeterZeihan YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/354-is-moral-progress-a-fantasy Sam Harris speaks with John Gray about the possibility of moral and political progress. They discuss historical and current threats to freedom of thought, the limits of law, the spread of dangerous technology, failures of convergence on norms and values, Arthur Koestler, de-industrialization in Europe, fellow travelers and the progressive embrace of barbarism, Bertrand Russell, the absurdity of pacifism, utilitarianism, the moral landscape, George Santayana, moral and scientific realism, pragmatism, atheism, Schopenhauer, liberalism as an historical accident, and other topics. John Gray is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including The Silence of Animals, The Immortalization Commission, Black Mass, and Straw Dogs. His latest book is The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and he has been a professor of politics at Oxford, a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale, and a professor of European thought at the London School of Economics. He now writes full-time. Website: https://www.newstatesman.com/author/john-gray Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/353-race-reason Sam Harris speaks with Coleman Hughes about race, racism, and social justice. They discuss the ideal of "color blindness," race and crime, Coleman's experience at TED, LatinX, the confusion of the elites, Ibram X. Kendi, affirmative action, class differences, poverty, single-parent families, the death of George Floyd and the trial of Derek Chauvin, mob rule, Candace Owens, Christopher Rufo, guilt by association, John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, reparations for slavery and Jim Crow, immigrant communities, evidence of discrimination, Martin Luther King Jr., and other topics. Coleman Hughes is a writer, podcast host, and musician. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Quillette, The Spectator, and the City Journal. Currently, he is a contributing writer at The Free Press and an analyst for CNN. His latest book is The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America. Website: https://colemanhughes.substack.com/ Twitter: @coldxman Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/352-hubris-chaos Sam Harris speaks with Rory Stewart about the fraying world order. They discuss the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the problems with nation building, cultural ignorance, tolerance for corruption, our catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the role that Islam played in our failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, conspiracy theories, the influence of social media, cults of martyrdom, the war in Ukraine, the age of populism, Trump and the future of NATO, Brexit, the current state of politics, GiveDirectly, and other topics. Rory Stewart is a leading thinker on international affairs and development currently serving as Special Advisor to GiveDirectly, which delivers cash directly to the world’s poorest households. Stewart was a member of the British Parliament for almost a decade, where he served as secretary of state for international development, prisons minister, minister for Africa, development minister for the Middle East and Asia, and minister for the environment. In addition to his work with GiveDirectly, Rory Stewart is also the co-host of The Rest is Politics podcast and author of How Not to Be a Politician. Website: https://www.givedirectly.org/ Twitter: @RoryStewartUK Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/351-5-myths-about-israel-and-the-war-in-gaza A transcript of this podcast is available on Sam’s blog.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/350-sharing-reality Sam Harris speaks with Jonathan Rauch and Josh Szeps about the foundations of knowledge and the fragmentation of society. They discuss the state of the mainstream media, diversity of viewpoints, the "reality-based" community, what Covid did to our information landscape, the Overton window and the news value of controversial stories, the unique challenge of Trump and Trumpism, the dangers of a second Trump term, the problem of immigration and controlling the southern border of the U.S., and other topics. Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, is the author of eight books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and recipient of the 2005 National Magazine Award, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book, published in 2021 by the Brookings Press, is The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, a spirited and deep-diving account of how to push back against disinformation, canceling, and other new threats to our fact-based epistemic order. Website: www.jonathanrauch.com Twitter: @jon_rauch Related Link: Trump’s Second Term Would Look Like This Josh Szeps is an independent journalist. In New York City he was a founding host of HuffPost Live, the multi-award-winning streaming talk network, where he hosted thousands of hours of live TV with the world’s biggest names. In his native Australia, he hosted a national morning television show and had a talk radio show on the public broadcaster, ABC Radio. Josh left legacy media to focus on having bullshit-free conversations about provocative issues on his own platform, Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps, a podcast, live events operation, and YouTube channel. Website: https://bit.ly/UC_substack Twitter: @joshzepps Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/349-generosity-cynicism-and-the-future-of-doing-good Sam Harris speaks with Chris Anderson about generosity in the age of the Internet. They talk about the new spirit of cynicism in tech and finance, the problems with DEI, the Coleman Hughes controversy at TED, the norm of color blindness, the science of generosity, the leverage of the Internet, the false opposition between selfishness and selflessness, mixed motives in giving, results vs reward, the importance of intentions, looking for the good in people, digital business models, the economics of TED, TEDx, wealth inequality, the ethics of billionaires, philanthropy at scale, the power of pledges, the arguments of Peter Singer, the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal, problems with Effective Altruism, how to improve our digital lives, and other topics. Chris Anderson is the curator of TED. Trained as a journalist after graduating Oxford University, he launched more than 100 magazines and websites before acquiring TED through his nonprofit foundation in 2001. His TED mantra—"ideas worth spreading"—continues to blossom on an international scale, with over 3,600 videos free on TED.com and 100,000 more on YouTube. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller TED Talks and has overseen the introduction of, among others, the TEDx program, the TED-Ed initiative, and the Audacious Project, a bold new philanthropic model to inspire change at scale. His latest book is Infectious Generosity. Website: https://www.infectiousgenerosity.org/ Twitter: @TEDchris Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/348-the-politics-of-antisemitism Sam Harris speaks with Rabbi David Wolpe about the global response to the atrocities of October 7th, 2023. They discuss the difference between Israeli and diaspora Jews, the history and logic of antisemitism, the role of conspiracy theories, Great Replacement Theory, reasons for Jewish success, right-wing antisemitism, left-wing antisemitism, the response of Harvard to October 7th, the college presidents’ testimony before Congress, the future of DEI and civil discourse, the BDS movement, antisemitism vs anti-Zionism, Jewish acceptance at Ivy League universities, the antisemitism endemic to Islam, foreign funding of US universities, and other topics. David Wolpe is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School, a Rabbinic Fellow at The Anti-Defamation League, a Senior Advisor to the Maimonides Fund, and the Emeritus Rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Rabbi Wolpe previously taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Hunter College, and UCLA. He is the author of eight books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times and  David, the Divided Heart. Website: www.facebook.com/RabbiWolpe Twitter: @rabbiwolpe

Share this episode: https://samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/347-finding-sanity-in-2024 Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it. Get 30 days free - https://www.wakingup.com/makingsense.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/the-best-kept-secret-in-history Sam Harris speaks with Brian Muraresku about ancient mystery religions and the possible psychedelic roots of Christianity. They discuss the Mysteries of Eleusis, the “pagan continuity hypothesis,” the cult of Dionysius, the Dead Sea scrolls and the Gnostic Gospels, Christianity as a cult of human sacrifice, the evidence for the use of psychedelics in ancient rites, the chemical analysis of ancient wine and beer, why Brian hasn’t tried psychedelics, the need for a modern Mysteries of Eleusis, and other topics. Brian Muraresku graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University with a degree in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. As an alumnus of Georgetown Law and a member of the Bars of both New York and Washington D.C., he has been practicing law internationally for over fifteen years. He lives outside Washington D.C. with his wife and two daughters. The Immortality Key is Muraresku's debut book. Website: https://www.brianmuraresku.com/ Twitter: @BrianMuraresku Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/345-resilience Sam Harris speaks with Amanda Knox about her experience of having been falsely convicted and imprisoned for murder in Italy. Amanda Knox is an exoneree, journalist, public speaker, and author of The New York Times best-selling memoir Waiting to Be Heard. She is the co-host, with her husband Christopher Robinson, of the podcast Labyrinths. Between 2007 and 2015, she spent nearly four years in an Italian prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn’t commit. She has since become an advocate for criminal justice reform and media ethics. She sits on the board of the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice. Website: www.knoxrobinson.com Twitter: @amandaknox Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/344-the-war-in-gaza Sam Harris comments on the recent testimony of university presidents before Congress, along with Elon Musk's reinstating of Alex Jones on X. He then introduces a recent episode of the Call Me Back podcast about the war in Gaza, hosted by Dan Senor. Sam really enjoyed listening to this conversation and we’re delighted to be able to share it with the Making Sense community. Dan Senor is co-author of a new book, The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World, which is a New York Times bestseller. This book on the origins of Israeli resilience—and what the U.S. can learn from Israeli society—is especially relevant since October 7. He is also co-author of Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, which has been translated into more than 30 languages. Dan is the host of the Call Me Back podcast, which has been focused exclusively on Israel and the Middle East since October 7, with most of the episodes built around conversations with Israeli journalists, officials and other experts on the ground in Israel. Previously, Dan served in various foreign policy positions in the U.S. Government—including in Iraq for over a year during the George W. Bush administration—and as an advisor to Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and others. Website: https://www.dansenor.com/ Twitter: @dansenor Douglas Murray is the associate editor of The Spectator and writes frequently for a variety of other publications, including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and The Sun. He has also given talks at both the British and European Parliaments and at the White House. He is the author of several books including The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, The Madness of Crowds, and most recently, The War on the West. Website: https://douglasmurray.net/ Twitter: @DouglasKMurray Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/343-what-is-islamophobia Sam Harris discusses the social and political consequences of a weaponized term. A transcript of this podcast is available on Sam’s blog.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/342-animal-minds-moral-truths Sam Harris speaks with Peter Singer about important problems in ethics. They discuss his career as a philosopher, the moral status of non-human animals, the ethics of moral hierarchies, speciesism, the scale of animal suffering, conscientious omnivores, animal experimentation, the tragic case of Sam Bankman-Fried, concerns about Effective Altruism, the problems with focusing on existential risk, the comparative nature of human suffering, the work of Derek Parfit, objective morality, and other topics. Peter Singer, dubbed “the world’s most influential living philosopher” by The New Yorker, has written, co-authored, edited, or co-edited more than 50 books in over 25 languages, including Practical Ethics, Writings on an Ethical Life, The Life You Can Save, and more. His 1975 book Animal Liberation is often credited with starting the modern animal rights movement. His TED Talk has over 2.25 million views. Singer was educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford and is currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University's Center for Human Values. When not teaching at Princeton, he lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife, Renata, with whom he enjoys hiking. He is also the author of Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed (Harper; May 23, 2023) and The Buddhist and the Ethicist: Conversations on Effective Altruism, Engaged Buddhism, and How to Build a Better World (Shambhala; December 12, 2023). Website: https://petersinger.info/ Twitter: @PeterSinger Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/341-gaza-global-order Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about the events of October 7th and the resulting war in Gaza. They discuss the unraveling of global order, the failure of the IDF, the incompetence of the Netanyahu government, the goals of Hamas, the Saudi peace treaty, the right of Israel to exist, the status of Palestinian and Jewish refugees, victim and perpetrator narratives, compromise vs justice, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, lessons from WW2, the danger of focusing on the past, the perverse significance of the al-Aqsa Mosque, the double standards to which Israel is held, false analogies to European colonialism, the rise of antisemitism, the future of politics in Israel, America’s role in preserving global order, the war in Ukraine, and other topics. Yuval Noah Harari, PhD, is a historian, philosopher and bestselling author, who is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals today. His books have sold 45 million copies in 65 languages. In 2019, Harari and his husband Itzik co-founded Sapienship, a social impact company specializing in content and production, with projects in the fields of education and entertainment. Sapienship’s main goal is to focus the public conversation on the most important global challenges facing the world today. Website: ynharari.com Twitter: @harari_yuval