#493 — Two Reasons to Meditate

Sam Harris speaks with Jonah Goldberg about the aftermath of the midterm elections. They discuss Trump's 60 Minutes interview, Trump's claims of election fraud, JD Vance's autopsy of the Republican defeat, corruption and the pardon power, the prospects for impeachment, Stephen Miller, the 2028 field, the Democrats and the far left, trolling and the collapse of norms, the tech oligarchs, and other topics. 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 Sherry Turkle about her new book, Artificial Intimacy. They discuss the early optimism of the internet, the attention economy, the loss of solitude and boredom, the decline of empathy, whether the performance of empathy can ever be enough, AI as therapist, the first-person pronoun as the "original sin" of generative AI, humanoid robots and consciousness, loneliness among older people, and other topics. 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 Jimmy Carr about comedy, culture, and the state of the West. They discuss Carr's new book on the craft of joke writing, why comedy should be taught, the ethics of crowd work, AI as a new god, cancel culture, attention and meditation, psychedelics, political violence and Italy's years of lead, immigration and unrest in Europe, Britain's economic decline, nuclear power, the case for educating for character, and other topics. In today's conversation, Sam and Jimmy discussed meditation and why it's worth practicing. If that piqued your interest, we'd love to get you started with a free trial of Waking Up. 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 Kevin Roose about the race to build artificial general intelligence. They discuss Roose's book The AGI Chronicles, the scaling laws behind AI's rapid progress, Dario Amodei's "big blob of compute" memo, the birth of reasoning models, Roose's encounter with Bing's Sydney chatbot, the roughly 50 people deciding humanity's future, the rivalries among lab leaders, AI agents and recursive self-improvement, the absence of regulation, and other topics. 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.

In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss Alex Gibney's documentary on Elon Musk, Dara Horn's insights into antisemitism, the Democrats' Hasan Piker problem, Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani, the Pentagon's plan to livestream a military execution, Trump's $5,000 voter promise, tech leaders' capitulation to Trump, and other topics. 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 Alex Gibney about his new documentary, Musk. They discuss Sam's former friendship with Musk, the line between visionary and con man, the myth of Tesla's founding, the staged self-driving video, Musk's lurch to the right, DOGE and the dismantling of USAID, his feud and reconciliation with Trump, Starlink and the war in Ukraine, the case for future investigations, and other topics. 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 Dara Horn about antisemitism, Jewish identity, and the failure of institutions. They discuss Horn's new book, why Jews predate the categories of religion and nationality, antisemitism as a lie rather than an ordinary form of bigotry, why DEI failed Jewish students, the history of anti-Zionism, whether the word "Zionism" is still useful, Horn's time on Harvard's antisemitism advisory group, Nazi influence in the Arab world, and other topics. 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 Anne Applebaum about corruption, authoritarianism, and America's retreat from the world. They discuss her Atlantic cover story, the revolutionary project behind Trump's second term, US support for Europe's far right, the AfD, European rearmament, the state of the war in Ukraine, Russian propaganda, Witkoff and Kushner's deal-making in Moscow, Venezuela as a union of kleptocracies, JD Vance's nativism, the midterms, the challenge of depoliticizing institutions, and other topics. 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 Ryan Greenblatt about AI misalignment and the risk of losing control of increasingly capable systems. They discuss the Hugging Face incident, the spectrum of concern about AI risk, why companies are racing ahead despite high odds of a, reward hacking, the distinction between alignment and control, the danger of AIs reasoning in "neuralese," alignment faking, how an AI takeover might unfold, and other topics.  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. 

Meditation can help us live better. It can also help us understand what is true about our own minds. These motivations might seem fundamentally different, but Sam explains why they're two aspects of the same project. 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.