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Sam Harris speaks with Russ Roberts about decision-making and the nature of moral progress. They discuss the shortcomings of economics as a science, the power of books, the difference between "wild" and "tame" problems, Darwin’s embarrassing thoughts about the value of marriage, the utility of decision of analysis, incommensurate goods, free riding, counterfactuals, how the decisions we make change us, the difficulty of predicting future experience, changing moral norms, Effective Altruism, free speech, whether we are making moral progress, social media, truth vs comfort, problems with consequentialism, rule-based consequentialism, free will, meditation, and other topics.
Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up 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.
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.
#313 — Apocalypse
Making Sense of Belief and Unbelief | Episode 6 of The Essential Sam Harris
#312 — The Trouble with AI
#311 — Did SARS-CoV-2 Escape from a Lab?
Making Sense of Free Will | Episode 5 of The Essential Sam Harris
#310 — Social Media & Public Trust
Making Sense of Encounters With Violence | Episode 4 of The Essential Sam Harris
#309 — Vulnerability, Politics, and Moral Worth
#308 — The Long Game
Making Sense of Foundations of Morality | Episode 3 of The Essential Sam Harris
#307 — Twitter, Elon, & Free Speech
Making Sense of Consciousness | Episode 2 of The Essential Sam Harris
#306 — Psychedelics & Mortality
#305 — Moral Knowledge
#304 — Why I Left Twitter
Making Sense of Artificial Intelligence | Episode 1 of The Essential Sam Harris
#303 — The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
#302 — Science & Civilization
#301 — The Politics of Unreality: Ukraine and Nuclear Risk
#300 — A Tale of Cancellation
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