Sam Harris | Making Sense of the Present Tense

I think social media has been the technology that has deranged us ... We have effectively been enrolled in a psychological experiment to which no one gave consent. And there was so little foresight around what each feature of this technology would do to us or would be likely to do to us—everything from the like button onward. And it has just been terrible. I just think it's been bad for society in almost every respect.

I think Trump is the worst person who has ever been president of the United States. That is obvious to me. It's a terrible misfortune that we have gotten ourselves in this position where we've spent three and a half years with this man as president. He's done immense harm to our country, our standing in the world, our society, our credibility.

We have to get some distance from, or at least notice an alternative to, being taken in by our own opinions. We don't have to believe every one of our thoughts. We don't have to form an opinion about all the things we form opinions about so readily, and we certainly don't have to do it as quickly as we do. And even when we have an opinion, we can hold it much more lightly than we do.

Your capacity to be offended is not something that anyone needs to respect, and it's not even something that you should respect. It is simply an emotional reaction, which doesn't in and of itself have any content.

I want to live in a society where we care no more about skin color and other superficial characteristics that are often attributed or ascribed to race than we care about hair color.