Making Sense with Sam Harris - Subscriber Content

To gain access to ALL full-length episodes, you'll need to subscribe. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.  Sam Harris speaks with Yasmine Mohammed about her book Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. They discuss her family background and indoctrination into conservative Islam, the double standard that Western liberals use when thinking about women in the Muslim community, the state of feminism in general, honor violence, the validity of criticizing other cultures, and many other topics. Yasmine Mohammed is a human rights activist and writer. She advocates for the rights of women living within Islamic majority countries, as well as those who struggle under religious fundamentalism. She is the founder of Free Hearts Free Minds, an organization that provides psychological support for ex-Muslims living within Muslim majority countries. Website: YasmineMohammed.com Twitter: @YasMohammedxx 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. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Only the first 1 hour and 4 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the BLACK podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 2 hours and 13 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED. Sam Harris speaks with BJ Miller and Shoshana Berger about preparing for death. They discuss the difference between palliative care and hospice, the tension between getting the most out of life and not clinging to experience, planning for death while still healthy, the importance of an advance directive, navigating the healthcare system, pain control at the end of life, assisted suicide, psychedelic therapy for end-of-life anxiety, and other topics. BJ Miller, MD, is a longtime hospice and palliative medicine physician and educator. He currently sees patients and families via telehealth through Mettle Health, a company he co-founded with the aim to provide personalized, holistic consultations for any patient or caregiver who needs help navigating the practical, emotional and existential issues that come with serious illness and disability. BJ has worked in all settings of care: hospital, clinic, residential facility, and home. Led by his own experiences as a patient, BJ advocates for the roles of our senses, community and presence in designing a better ending. His TED Talk has been viewed over 15 Million times and he speaks internationally on themes of illness, death and loss. Website: www.mettlehealth.com Twitter: @bjmillermd Shoshana Berger is the Global Executive Editor of IDEO, where she has worked on projects related to organization transformation, the end of life, modern Judaism, and school lunch. Before joining IDEO, she was a Senior Editor at WIRED, where she launched WIRED Design, and prior to that, founder of the DIY magazine, ReadyMade, later turning it into a book, Ready Made: How to Make (Almost) Everything. She is the coauthor, with Dr. BJ Miller, of A Beginner's Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death. She has written for The New York Times, TIME, WIRED, and Fast Company. Website: linkedin.com/in/shoshanaberger Twitter: @shoshanaberger   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. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Only the first 42 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the black podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 1 hour 42 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear red. Sam Harris speaks with Jonah Goldberg about the state of American politics and civil society. They discuss the hyperpartisanship of the Left and Right, what Trump has done to the Republican party, the breakdown of trust in institutions, the “new catastrophism” enabled by social media, the problem of populism, and other topics. Jonah Goldberg is the editor-in-chief of The Dispatch. He holds the Asness Chair in Applied Liberty at the American Enterprise Institute and was previously a senior editor at National Review, where he worked for two decades. He is also the host of the podcast The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and a CNN commentator. His nationally syndicated column appears regularly in over a hundred newspapers across the United States. He was the founding editor of National Review Online and appears regularly on NPR's Morning Edition. The Atlantic magazine has identified Goldberg as one of the top 50 political commentators in America, and he is the author of three New York Times bestsellers. Website: thedispatch.com Twitter: @JonahDispatch   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. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Only the first 44 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the black podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 1 hour 56 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear red. Sam Harris speaks to Kieran Setiya about the relevance of philosophy to living a good life. They discuss the existence of objective moral truths, being happy vs living well, our response to grief, the difference between "telic" and "atelic" activities, the power of reframing, FOMO, bias toward the future, regret, the asymmetry between pain and pleasure, and other topics. Kieran Setiya is a professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His new book, Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way, comes out October 2022. He is the author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books, The New York Times, Aeon, and The Yale Review. Website: www.ksetiya.net  Twitter: @KieranSetiya   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. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Only the first 40 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the black podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 1 hour 25 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear red. Sam Harris speaks with Will Storr about the role that status plays in human life and culture. They talk about the taboo around caring about status, egalitarianism, the perpetual insecurity of status, how we play multiple status games simultaneously, identity, social connection, dominance, virtue, success, status as an evolved mechanism, gossip, status and health, the consequences of humiliation, the role of social media, status and politics, conspiracy thinking, moral panics, status and philanthropy, and other topics. Will Storr is an award-winning writer. He's the author of six critically acclaimed books, including the Sunday Times bestseller The Science of Storytelling. His journalism has appeared in titles such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His work on sexual violence against men earned the Amnesty International Award and a One World Press Award. Website: willstorr.com  Twitter: @wstorr   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. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

To gain access to ALL full-length episodes, you'll need to subscribe. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe. Sam Harris responds to a controversy over a recent podcast appearance.   If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

To gain access to ALL full-length episodes, you'll need to subscribe. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe. Sam Harris speaks with William MacAskill about his new book, What We Owe the Future. They discuss the philosophy of effective altruism (EA), longtermism, existential risk, criticism of EA, problems with expected-value reasoning, doing good vs feeling good, why it's hard to care about future people, how the future gives meaning to the present, why this moment in history is unusual, the pace of economic and technological growth, bad political incentives, value lock-in, the well-being of conscious creatures as the foundation of ethics, the risk of unaligned AI, how bad we are at predicting technological change, and other topics. William MacAskill is an Associate Professor in Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford. He is one of the primary voices in a philanthropic movement known as “effective altruism” and the co-founder of three non-profits based on effective altruist principles: Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, and the Centre for Effective Altruism. He is also the Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research and the author of Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference. Website: 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. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Only the first 1 hour and 4 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the BLACK podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 1 hour and 43 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED. Sam Harris speaks with Arthur C. Brooks about what it takes to build a good life. They discuss the power of social comparison, the intelligence taboo, political dignity and ethical hierarchy, the Dalai Lama, the nature of love, fluid and crystallized intelligences, the strange case of Linus Pauling, the limits of identity, atheism and religious faith, fear of death, psychedelics, existentialism, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other topics. Arthur C. Brooks is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses on leadership and happiness. He is also a columnist at The Atlantic, where he writes the popular “How to Build a Life” column. Brooks is the author of 12 books, including the 2022 #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. He speaks all around the world about love and happiness, giving more than 150 speeches and lectures per year in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.  Brooks began his career as a classical musician, leaving college at 19, and performing with ensembles in the United States and Spain. In his late twenties, while still performing, he returned to school, earning a BA in economics through distance learning. At 31, he left music and earned an MPhil and PhD in public policy analysis, during which time he worked as a military analyst for the Rand Corporation. Brooks then spent the next 10 years as a university professor at Syracuse University, where he taught economics and nonprofit management. In 2009, Brooks became the president of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, one of the world’s most influential think tanks, which he led for a decade. During this period, he was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 World’s Greatest Leaders” and was awarded seven honorary doctorates.  Originally from Seattle, Brooks currently lives outside Boston, with his wife Ester Munt-Brooks, who is a native of Barcelona. They have three adult children. Website: arthurbrooks.com  Twitter: @arthurbrooks   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. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.  

Only the first 48 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the BLACK podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 1 hour and 53 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear RED. In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Marc Andreessen about the current state of Internet technology and culture. They discuss Marc's background in tech, the birth of the Internet, how advertising became the business model for digital media, the three stages of the Web, the blockchain, how successful technology reorders status and power in society, the Bitcoin white paper, the mystery surrounding the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the importance of distributed consensus, Bitcoin as digital gold, how society has performed during Covid, James Burnham and managerial capitalism, the principal-agent problem, negative externalities, risk and regulation, trust in institutions, WTF happened in 1971, regulatory capture, banning Trump and Alex Jones from social media, perverse incentives in philanthropy, and other topics. Marc Andreessen is a co-founder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is an innovator and creator, one of the few to pioneer a software category used by more than a billion people and one of the few to establish multiple billion-dollar companies. Marc co-created the highly influential Mosaic internet browser and co-founded Netscape, which later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. He also co-founded Loudcloud, which as Opsware, sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. He later served on the board of Hewlett-Packard from 2008 to 2018. Marc holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Marc serves on the board of the following Andreessen Horowitz portfolio companies: Applied Intuition, Carta, Dialpad, Honor, OpenGov, and Samsara Networks. He is also on the board of Meta. Website: a16z.com Twitter: @pmarca   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.

Oliver Burkeman, an unconventional time management expert, discusses embracing our finitude and surrendering to the rhythms of life. He challenges traditional ideas of efficiency and productivity, encouraging us to focus on what truly matters. Topics covered include the fear of missing out, the power of decision-making, the importance of prioritization, and the challenge of distraction.