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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

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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

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