Making Sense with Sam Harris - Subscriber Content

Is it possible that the mindfulness notion of the self being an illusion is itself an illusion?Tell me some real life examples that are good for society and that are informed by Charles Murray's research in the bell curve.Do you think reducing animal suffering is a moral blind spot of modern humans or a moral error?How is Brazilian jiu-jitsu coming?What are your thoughts on Kevin Kelly's article The Myth of Superhuman AI?How do you think your friend the late, great Christopher Hitchens would have dealt with a Trump presidency?Will you do a podcast with Ben Shapiro on religion?How would someone lose their faith? Just a blow to the head or a good scare?Is there hope for a centrist politics?Can you share some insights on parenting? How does/did rational and mindful Sam Harris handle an angry toddler?How do you explain other religions and beliefs to your kids?Could you describe what it was like going through your PhD program? What was it like going back to undergrad after a long break?What's your gut feeling on the prospect of military conflict between the US and Russia, China, and North Korea in the near future?Will you have someone studying transgenderism biologically on [the podcast] at some point? How are you forming your opinions around this issue?Just finished your book Free Will and wish it was 10 times longer. Any plans for more on this topic?Do you plan to read more of The End of Faith?Do you think having a large vocabulary is valuable in your line of work and life in general and what is your advice for expanding it?

Gary Taubes is the author of Why We Get Fat; Good Calories, Bad Calories; and The Case Against Sugar. He is a former staff writer for Discover and a correspondent for the journal Science. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Esquire, and has been included in numerous “Best of” anthologies, including The Best of the Best American Science Writing (2010). He has received three Science in Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers. He is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research and a co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI). Website: garytaubes.com Twitter: @garytaubes

Charles Murray is a political scientist and author. His 1994 New York Times bestseller, The Bell Curve (coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein), sparked heated controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ in shaping America’s class structure. Murray’s other books include What It Means to Be a Libertarian, Human Accomplishment, and In Our Hands. His 2012 book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 describes an unprecedented divergence in American classes over the last half century. Twitter: @charlesmurray

Michael Hayden is a retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Hayden also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at George Mason University School of Public Policy. He is the author of Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror.

Tristan Harris has been called the “closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience,” by The Atlantic magazine. He was the Design Ethicist at Google and left the company to lead Time Well Spent, where he focuses on how better incentives and design practices can create a world that helps us spend our time well. Harris’s work has been featured on 60 Minutes and the PBS NewsHour, and in many journals, websites, and conferences, including: The Atlantic, ReCode, TED, the Economist, Wired, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, and the New York Review of Books. He was rated #16 in Inc Magazine’s “Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30” in 2009 and holds several patents from his work at Apple, Wikia, Apture and Google. Harris graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Computer Science.

Lawrence Krauss is a theoretical physicist and the director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. He is the author of more than 300 scientific publications and nine books, including the international bestsellers, A Universe from Nothing and The Physics of Star Trek. The recipient of numerous awards, Krauss is a regular columnist for newspapers and magazines, including The New Yorker, and he appears frequently on radio, television, and in feature films. His most recent book is The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far: Why Are We Here?

Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a visiting Professor at the London School of Economics where she runs Arena, a program on disinformation and 21st century propaganda. Formerly a member of the Washington Post editorial board, she has also worked at the Spectator, the Evening Standard, Slate, the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, the Economist, and the Independent. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, Foreign Affairs, The New Criterion, The Weekly Standard, the New Republic, The National Review, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, and many other journals. She is the author of Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956, which describes the imposition of Soviet totalitarianism in Central Europe after the Second World War. Her previous book, Gulag: A History, won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 2004. Twitter: @anneapplebaum

Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about meditation, the need for stories, the power of technology to erase the boundary between fact and fiction, wealth inequality, the problem of finding meaning in a world without work, religion as a virtual reality game, the difference between pain and suffering, and other topics. Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in history from Oxford University and is a professor in the Department of History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He specialized in World History, medieval history and military history, but his current research focuses on macro-historical questions: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded? He is the author of two blockbuster books, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. 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 and Jordan Peterson discuss science, religion, archetypes, mythology, and the perennial problem of finding meaning in life.

Kate Darling is a leading expert in robot ethics. She’s a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, where she investigates social robotics and conducts experimental studies on human-robot interaction. Kate is also a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Yale Information Society Project, and is an affiliate at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. She explores the emotional connection between people and life-like machines, seeking to influence technology design and public policy. Her writing and research anticipate difficult questions that lawmakers, engineers, and the wider public will need to address as human-robot relationships evolve in the coming decades. Kate has a background in law & economics and intellectual property. Twitter: @grok_