Synopsis
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the human mind, society, and current events. Sam Harris is the author of The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz). The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing has been published in more than 20 languages. Mr. Harris and his work have been discussed in The New York Times, Time, Scientific American, Nature, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Newsweek, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere.Mr. Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
Episodes
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#134 — Beyond the Politics of Race
29/07/2018 Duration: 50minSam Harris speaks with Coleman Hughes about race, racism, and identity politics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#133 — Globalism on the Brink
18/07/2018 Duration: 24minSam Harris speaks with Ian Bremmer about the failure of globalism and rise of populism. They discuss immigration, trade, automation, wealth inequality, Trump, identity politics and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#132 — Freeing the Hostages
09/07/2018 Duration: 26minSam Harris speaks with Chris Voss about his experience as a hostage negotiator for the FBI. They discuss different types of hostage crises, along with many of the lessons that apply to negotiating in normal life. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#131 — Dictators, Immigration, #MeToo, and Other Imponderables
03/07/2018 Duration: 36minSam Harris speaks with Masha Gessen about Vladimir Putin, the problem of gauging public opinion in Russia, Trump's fondness for dictators, the challenges of immigration, comparisons between Christian and Muslim intolerance, "fake news" and the health of journalism, the #MeToo movement, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#130 — Universal Basic Income
19/06/2018 Duration: 24minSam Harris speaks with presidential candidate Andrew Yang about "universal basic income" (UBI). They discuss the state of the economy, the rise of automation and AI, the arguments for and against UBI, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#129 — An Insider’s View of Medicine
12/06/2018 Duration: 28minSam Harris speaks with Dr. Nina Shapiro about the practice of medicine. They discuss the unique resiliency of children, the importance of second opinions, bad doctors, how medical training has changed in recent years, medical uncertainty, risk perception, vaccine safety, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#128 — Transformations of Mind
04/06/2018 Duration: 01h09minSam Harris speaks with Geoffrey Miller about evolutionary psychology. They discuss sexual selection, virtue signaling, social media, public shaming, monogamy and polyamory, taboo topics in science, genetic engineering, gender differences and the “Google memo,” moral psychology, existential risk, AI, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#127 — Freedom from the Known
28/05/2018 Duration: 38minSam Harris speaks with Michael Pollan about his new book “How to Change Your Mind.” They cover the the resurgence of interest in psychedelics in clinical practice and end-of-life care, the “betterment of well people,” the relationship between thinking and mental suffering, the differences between psychedelics and meditation, the non-duality of consciousness, the brain’s “default mode network,” their experiences with various psychedelics, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#126 — In Defense of Honor
08/05/2018 Duration: 50minSam Harris speaks with Tamler Sommers about cultures of honor. They discuss the difference between honor and dignity, “justice porn,” honor killings, honor and interpersonal violence, prison and gang culture, collective responsibility and collective punishment, retributive vs restorative justice, the ethics of forgiveness and redemption, #metoo, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#125 — What Is Christianity?
01/05/2018 Duration: 49minSam Harris speaks to Bart Ehrman about his experience of being a born-again Christian, his academic training in New Testament scholarship, his loss of faith, the most convincing argument in defense of Christianity, the status of miracles, the composition of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus, the nature of heaven and hell, the book of Revelation, the End Times, self-contradictions in the Bible, the concept of a messiah, whether Jesus actually existed, Christianity as a cult of human sacrifice, the conversion of Constantine, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#124 — In Search of Reality
21/04/2018 Duration: 47minSam Harris speaks with Sean Carroll about our understanding of reality. They discuss consciousness, the many worlds view of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, free will, facts and values, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#123 — Identity & Honesty
09/04/2018 Duration: 52minSam Harris speaks with Ezra Klein, Editor-at-Large for Vox Media, about racism, identity politics, intellectual honesty, and the controversy over his podcast with Charles Murray (Making Sense #73). SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#122 — Extreme Housekeeping Edition
03/04/2018 Duration: 17minSam Harris responds to the ongoing controversy over his interview with Charles Murray and discusses his upcoming conversation with Ezra Klein. He also announces a change he will be making to the format of the podcast. SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#121 — White Power
25/03/2018 Duration: 01h53sSam Harris speaks with Christian Picciolini about his experience as a neo-Nazi skinhead. They discuss how Christian got out of the movement, the limits of shame and forgiveness, the cult-like dynamics of white supremacy, the alt-Right, Russian support for white supremacy in the US, “fake news”, the significance of Charlottesville, the SPLC, and many other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#120 — What Is and What Matters
19/03/2018 Duration: 50minSam Harris speaks with Rebecca Goldstein and Max Tegmark about the foundations of human knowledge and morality. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#119 — Hidden Motives
12/03/2018 Duration: 59minIn this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Robin Hanson about our hidden motives in everyday life. They discuss selfishness, hypocrisy, norms and meta-norms, cheating, deception, self-deception, education, the evolutionary logic of conversation, social status, signaling and counter-signaling, common knowledge, AI, and many other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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# 118 — The View from Trumpistan
27/02/2018 Duration: 28minIn this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Preet Bharara about President Trump and the Russia investigation. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#117 — Networks, Power, and Chaos
19/02/2018 Duration: 40minIn this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Niall Ferguson about his new book "The Square and the Tower." They discuss his career as a writer, networks and hierarchies, how history gets written, the similarity between the 16th century and the 21st, the role of social media in the 2016 Presidential election, the influence of advertising on the public sphere, Trump, the Russian investigation, Islamic extremism, counterfactuals, what would have happened if Clinton had won the presidency, immigration in Europe, conspiracy theories, capitalism, globalization, communism, wealth inequality, universal basic income, Henry Kissinger, the prospect of a US war with China, cyberwar, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.
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The Russell Brand Interview
09/02/2018 Duration: 02h01minThis episode of the Making Sense podcast features an interview that Sam did with Russell Brand on the Under the Skin podcast. They speak about religion, terrorism, politics, meditation, psychedelics, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
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#116 — AI: Racing Toward the Brink
06/02/2018 Duration: 55minIn this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Eliezer Yudkowsky about the nature of intelligence, different types of AI, the "alignment problem," IS vs OUGHT, the possibility that future AI might deceive us, the AI arms race, conscious AI, coordination problems, and other topics. SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.