In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with William MacAskill about his new book, What We Owe the Future. They discuss the philosophy of effective altruism (EA), longtermism, existential risk, criticism of EA, problems with expected-value reasoning, doing good vs feeling good, why it's hard to care about future people, how the future gives meaning to the present, why this moment in history is unusual, the pace of economic and technological growth, bad political incentives, value lock-in, the well-being of conscious creatures as the foundation of ethics, the risk of unaligned AI, how bad we are at predicting technological change, and other topics.
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Making Sense with Sam Harris
#226 — The Price of Distraction
#225 — Republic of Lies
#224 — The Key to Trump's Appeal
#223 — A Conversation with Andrew Sullivan
#222 — A Pandemic of Incompetence
#221 — Success, Failure, & the Common Good
#220 - The Information Apocalypse
#219 — The Power of Compassion
#218 — Welcome to the Cult Factory
#217 — The New Religion of Anti-Racism
#216 — A Conversation with Graeme Wood
#215 — A Conversation with David Miliband
#214 — A Conversation with Siddhartha Mukherjee
#213 — The Worst Epidemic
#212 — A Conversation with Kathryn Paige Harden
#211 — The Nature of Human Nature
#210 — The Logic of Doomsday
#209 — A Good Life
#208 — Existential Risk
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