Making Sense of Social Media and the Information Landscape | Episode 8 of The Essential Sam Harris
Release Date: 05/05/2023
#342 — Animal Minds & Moral Truths
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with Peter Singer about important problems in ethics. They discuss his career as a philosopher, the moral status of non-human animals, the ethics of moral hierarchies, speciesism, the scale of animal suffering, conscientious omnivores, animal experimentation, the tragic case of Sam Bankman-Fried, concerns about Effective Altruism, the problems with focusing on existential risk, the comparative nature of human suffering, the work of Derek Parfit, objective morality, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to...
info_outline
#341 — Gaza & Global Order
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about the events of October 7th and the resulting war in Gaza. They discuss the unraveling of global order, the failure of the IDF, the incompetence of the Netanyahu government, the goals of Hamas, the Saudi peace treaty, the right of Israel to exist, the status of Palestinian and Jewish refugees, victim and perpetrator narratives, compromise vs justice, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, lessons from WW2, the danger of focusing on the past, the perverse significance of the al-Aqsa Mosque, the double standards to which Israel is held, false analogies...
info_outline
#340 — The Bright Line Between Good and Evil
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks about the ongoing war in Gaza, the global rise of antisemitism, and the enduring problem of jihadism. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at .
info_outline
#339 — The Infernal Logic of Jihad
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with Graeme Wood about the October 7th atrocities in Israel, the unfolding war in Gaza, and the ongoing problem of global jihadism. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at .
info_outline
#338 — The Sin of Moral Equivalence
Making Sense with Sam Harris
If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at .
info_outline
#337 — The Future of Psychedelic Medicine
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with Jeannie Fontana and Robin Carhart-Harris about the in California and the growing promise of psychedelics for mental health care. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at . Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the 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.
info_outline
#336 — The Roots of Identity Politics
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with Yascha Mounk about identity politics. They discuss Yascha’s concept of the “identity synthesis,” skepticism about “cancel culture,” racial segregation in schools, the ideological change on college campuses, Michel Foucault and postmodernism, the rejection of universalism, Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, the “permanence of racism,” the indoctrination of children, intersectionality, white privilege, institutional racism, equity vs equality, racial preferences during the Covid pandemic, the asymmetric advantage of authoritarianism, class and elitism,...
info_outline
#335 — A Postmortem on My Response to Covid
Making Sense with Sam Harris
If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at .
info_outline
#334 — The Low-Trust Society
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with David Brooks about the state of American democracy and the liberal world order. They discuss the weakness of moral individualism, the loss of social trust, the dangers of identity politics, what happened to the Republican Party, the hatred of elites, the 2024 Presidential Election, the Trump indictments, the war in Ukraine, moral force, the roots of liberalism, the various flavors of Trump support, the Biden presidency, Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal, Biden’s prospects in 2024, Nikki Haley, economic inequality, the problems with meritocracy, the state of media and...
info_outline
#333 — Sanity Check on Climate Change
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Sam Harris speaks with Chris Field about climate change and its consequences. They discuss skepticism about climate change, the accuracy of climate models, the magnitude of temperature increases, how global temperatures are measured, the historical record of climate variation, the range of possibilities in the coming decades, feedback mechanisms, wildfires, water vapor, air pollution, solar geo-engineering, the biggest challenge to taking action on climate change, the costs of transitioning to a carbon-neutral economy, renewable sources of energy, nuclear power, carbon capture, hydrogen, the...
info_outlineIn this episode, we examine a series of Sam’s conversations centered around social media’s impact on the information landscape.
We begin with Sam’s second conversation with Tristan Harris, which was conducted shortly after the release of Tristan’s documentary, The Social Dilemma. The documentary lays out Tristan’s thesis on how social media is causing the deterioration of both individual and societal welfare. Author and technologist Jaron Lanier follows, echoing Tristan’s concerns and shifting the conversation to social media’s unique business model, addressing how perverse incentives reliably produce such detrimental outcomes.
We then hear from Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter. Sam and Dorsey’s conversation took place when Dorsey was still working at Twitter, and Sam still had an account. However, the questions they pose—relating to issues of content moderation and corporate transparency—are even more relevant today.
Next, psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents the alarming findings from his research on the psychological effects of social media, detailing how teenage girls are bearing the brunt of a mental health crisis.
Shifting to a more political lens, Sam and Cass Sunstein discuss Sunstein’s book, #Republic, and Sunstein addresses one of Sam’s most pressing fears of the last seven years: how social media is warping our opinions on politics. We then narrow down on this issue, with Zeynep Tufekci explaining the real-life consequences of social media’s influence on protest movements.
Finally, Sam and technology analyst Nina Schick dive into one of the most urgent concerns of the AI boom: deepfakes and how they might be weaponized to further pollute and degrade our information landscape.
About the Series
Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced The Essential Sam Harris, a new series of audio documentaries exploring the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his career.
Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.