Making Sense with Sam Harris - Subscriber Content

Sam Harris speaks with Rebecca Traister about her new book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. Rebecca Traister is writer at large for New York magazine and a contributing editor at Elle. A National Magazine Award finalist, she has written about women in politics, media, and entertainment from a feminist perspective for The New Republic and Salon and has also contributed to The Nation, The New York Observer, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour and Marie Claire. She is the author of All the Single Ladies and the award-winning Big Girls Don’t Cry. Website: http://www.rebeccatraister.com/ Twitter: @rtraister

Matt Taibbi is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and winner of the 2008 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Great Derangement, Griftopia, and The Divide. He is currently working on serial book about the failings of the media, titled The Fairway: Thirty Years After Manufacturing Consent, How Mass Media Still Keeps Thought Inbounds. Twitter: @mtaibbi Website: https://taibbi.substack.com

Sam Harris speaks with Matt Taibbi about the state journalism and the polarization of our politics. They discuss the controversy over Steve Bannon at the New Yorker Festival, monetizing the Trump phenomenon, the Jamal Kashoggi murder, the Kavanaugh hearing, the Rolling Stone reporting on the UVA rape case, the viability of a political center, the 2020 Presidential election, the Russia investigation, our vanishing attention span, and other topics. Matt Taibbi is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and winner of the 2008 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Great Derangement, Griftopia, and The Divide. He is currently working on serial book about the failings of the media, titled The Fairway: Thirty Years After Manufacturing Consent, How Mass Media Still Keeps Thought Inbounds. Twitter: @mtaibbi Website: https://taibbi.substack.com

Sam Harris gets together with Bill Maher and Larry Charles to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their film “Religulous.” They discuss religion, politics, comedy, and other dangerous topics. Bill Maher has set the boundaries of where funny, political talk can go on American television. First on “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC, 1993-2002), and for the last fifteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous,” directed by Larry Charles. The documentary has gone on to become the 8th Highest Grossing Documentary ever. Larry Charles is an American writer, director, and producer. Charles was a staff writer for the American sitcom “Seinfeld“ for its first five seasons, contributing some of the show’s darkest and most absurd storylines. He has also directed the mockumentary comedy films “Borat” and “Brüno,” the documentary film “Religulous,” and comedy film The Dictator.  

Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about his new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. They discuss the importance of meditation for his intellectual life, the primacy of stories, the need to revise our fundamental assumptions about human civilization, the threats to liberal democracy, a world without work, universal basic income, the virtues of nationalism, the implications of AI and automation, and other topics. Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in world history. His books have been translated into 50+ languages, with 12+ million copies sold worldwide. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind   looked deep into our past, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow  considered far-future scenarios, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century  focuses on the biggest questions of the present moment. Twitter: @harari_yuval

Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then did post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India. He taught at the University of Virginia for 16 years before moving to NYU-Stern in 2011. He was named one of the “top global thinkers” by Foreign Policy magazine, and one of the “top world thinkers” by Prospect magazine. He is the co-developer of Moral Foundations theory, and of the research site YourMorals.org. He is a co-founder of HeterodoxAcademy.org, which advocates for viewpoint diversity in higher education. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. His latest book (with Greg Lukianoff) is The Coddling of the American Mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting a generation up for failure. Website: jonathanhaidt.com Twitter: @JonHaidt

Sam Harris speaks with Jonathan Haidt about his new book The Coddling of the American Mind. They discuss the hostility to free speech that has grown more common among young adults, recent moral panics on campus, the role of intentions in ethical life, the economy of prestige in “call out” culture, how we should define bigotry, systemic racism, the paradox of progress, and other topics. Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then did post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India. He taught at the University of Virginia for 16 years before moving to NYU-Stern in 2011. He was named one of the “top global thinkers” by Foreign Policy magazine, and one of the “top world thinkers” by Prospect magazine. He is the co-developer of Moral Foundations theory, and of the research site YourMorals.org. He is a co-founder of HeterodoxAcademy.org, which advocates for viewpoint diversity in higher education. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. His latest book (with Greg Lukianoff) is The Coddling of the American Mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting a generation up for failure.   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.

Jaron Lanier is a scientist, musician, and writer best known for his work in virtual reality and his advocacy of humanism and sustainable economics in a digital context. His 1980s start-up VPL Research created the first commercial VR products and introduced avatars, multi-person virtual world experiences, and prototypes of major VR applications such as surgical simulation. His books Who Owns the Future? and You Are Not a Gadget were international bestsellers, and Dawn of the New Everything was named a 2017 best book of the year by The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Vox. His most recent book is 10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.

Sam Harris speaks with Jaron Lanier about the economics, politics, and psychology of our digital lives. They discuss the insidious idea that information should be free, what we should want from an advanced economy, the role of advertising, libertarianism in Silicon Valley, the problems with social media, and other topics. Jaron Lanier is a scientist, musician, and writer best known for his work in virtual reality and his advocacy of humanism and sustainable economics in a digital context. His 1980s start-up VPL Research created the first commercial VR products and introduced avatars, multi-person virtual world experiences, and prototypes of major VR applications such as surgical simulation. His books Who Owns the Future? and You Are Not a Gadget were international bestsellers, and Dawn of the New Everything was named a 2017 best book of the year by The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Vox. His most recent book is 10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.   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 Martie Haselton about sex and gender, hormones in human psychology, transgenderism, and the unique hormonal experiences of women. They discuss evolutionary psychology, Darwinian feminism, and the challenges faced by transgender individuals in gender transitions. They also explore gender differences in behavior and fertility, including the importance of studying both sexes in research.