Making Sense with Sam Harris - Subscriber Content

Shane Parrish, host of The Knowledge Project and founder of Farnam Street, shares insights on mental models that shape our decision-making. He discusses cognitive biases and the importance of long-term thinking. Parrish emphasizes the need for integrating diverse knowledge to enhance understanding and problem-solving. The conversation also touches on the ethical complexities of thought experiments, like those surrounding torture and genetic modifications. Finally, they explore the impact of relationships on well-being and the dangers of digital echo chambers.

Sam Harris reads from an issue of Dabiq, the magazine of ISIS, and discusses the beliefs and goals of jihadists worldwide.

Sam Harris introduces John Brockman’s new anthology, “Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI,” in conversation with three of its authors: George Dyson, Alison Gopnik, and Stuart Russell. George Dyson is a historian of technology. He is also the author of Darwin Among the Machines and Turing’s Cathedral. Alison Gopnik is a developmental psychologist at UC Berkeley and a leader in the field of children’s learning and development. Her books include The Philosophical Baby. Stuart Russell is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at UC Berkeley. He is the author of (with Peter Norvig) of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the most widely used textbook on AI.

Sam Harris speaks with Roger McNamee about his book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. Roger McNamee has been a Silicon Valley investor for thirty-five years. He has cofounded successful venture funds including Elevation with U2’s Bono. He was a former mentor to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and helped recruit COO Sheryl Sandberg to the company. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Twitter: @Moonalice

Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher with a background in theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic, and artificial intelligence. He is Professor at Oxford University, where he leads the Future of Humanity Institute as its founding director. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias, Global Catastrophic Risks, Human Enhancement, and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, a New York Times bestseller. Website: nickbostrom.com

Sam Harris speaks with Nick Bostrom about the problem of existential risk. They discuss public goods, moral illusions, the asymmetry between happiness and suffering, utilitarianism, “the vulnerable world hypothesis,” the history of nuclear deterrence, the possible need for “turnkey totalitarianism,” whether we’re living in a computer simulation, the Doomsday Argument, the implications of extraterrestrial life, and other topics. Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher with a background in theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic, and artificial intelligence. He is Professor at Oxford University, where he leads the Future of Humanity Institute as its founding director. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias, Global Catastrophic Risks, Human Enhancement, and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, a New York Times bestseller. Website: nickbostrom.com Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Daniel Kahneman at the Beacon Theatre in NYC. They discuss the replication crisis in science, System 1 and System 2, where intuitions reliably fail, expert intuitions, the power of framing, moral illusions, anticipated regret, the asymmetry between threats and opportunities, the utility of worrying, removing obstacles to wanted behaviors, the remembering self vs the experiencing self, improving the quality of gossip, and other topics. Daniel Kahneman is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his pioneering work with Amos Tversky on decision-making. His most recent book is Thinking Fast and Slow.

Sam Harris speaks with Sally Satel about addiction. They discuss whether addiction should be considered a disease, the opiate epidemic in the U.S., the unique danger of fentanyl, the politicization of medicine, PTSD, and other topics. Sally Satel, M.D., is a practicing psychiatrist and lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine who examines mental health policy as well as political trends in medicine. Her publications include PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine; When Altruism Isn’t Enough: The Case for Compensating Organ Donors; One Nation Under Therapy (coauthored with Christina Hoff Sommers); and Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience (coauthored with Scott Lilienfeld), which was a 2014 finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science. Website: sallysatelmd.com Twitter: @slsatel

What are your thoughts about picking a career, or about picking areas of academic study that lead to viable careers?Recently you mentioned that Noam Chomsky had expressed interest in coming on the podcast. Can you provide an update on whether this is happening?Who is your favorite thinker that you mostly disagree with?What exactly were the "pointing out instructions" you got from Tulku Urgyen that you described in your book Waking Up as "the most important thing you ever learned from another human being"?I’m a middle-aged man who has never had children. Do I need to have kids for my existence to matter?They say that "the unexamined life is not worth living," but is this really true? I spend hours every day thinking about (and sometimes agonizing over) "deep" questions and political problems, and I experience real suffering as a result. My girlfriend is completely oblivious to these concerns, and she’s generally happy. What should I make of this?How do you see the election of Trump now that a few years have gone by? Have you come to new insights or conclusions?Teachers like Eckhart Tolle advise us to “let go of the past.” Jordan Peterson and others recommend that one “go through one’s life with a fine-toothed comb” to become a better person. Which approach do you feel is more beneficial?Does the rigorous nature of scientific consensus itself justify belief?Do you see any downside to your association with the "Intellectual Dark Web"?What are your thoughts on the morality of football given its connection to CTE?What do you think of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s suggested marginal tax of 70% on income above $10M?How do you determine when it is a good idea to respond to lies and dishonest criticism, and which charges are better ignored?You've said that society would be better off if we recognized that we don't have free will. What positive effects on society do you think would follow if people realized the self is an illusion?Have you ever had anti-Semitism directed at you? If so, how did it make you feel, given your ambivalence toward Judaism as a cultural identity?Under the influence of certain psychedelics, users regularly report "receiving messages" from entities, plants, or spirits. What is your take on this?What are your thoughts on the problem of cultural appropriation?How do you think about regret? If free will is an illusion, one cannot (or should not) feel regret towards something one didn’t choose. I can understand this conceptually, but this doesn’t eliminate feeling bad about past choices and their consequences.

Jack Dorsey is a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Twitter and Square, which he cofounded. He was recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people, was named an “outstanding innovator under the age of 35” by MIT Technology Review and named “Innovator of the Year” by the Wall Street Journal for his work in technology. Website: twitter.com and squareup.com Twitter: @jack