Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger
show. You should be following people on social media, who you disagree with, you know, or at least people who are adjacent enough to people, who you really disagree with it. We're seeing things you disagree with. If you're only seeing things, you agree with right where it's just everything's got the Top Spin that, you like your disposed just to forward it on even before reading the article, right? You just like the headline enough and you like the source enough that, you know, this is good enough and you just couldn't
Give it your Boost, you know, you're absolutely part of the problem.
Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger on the Jordan Harbinger show we decode the stories secrets and skills of the World's Most Fascinating People, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts, and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional four-star, general National Security advisor or extreme athletes. Each episode turns Our Guest, wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If
you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it. We now have episode starter packs. These starter packs are collections of your favorite episodes organized by popular topics to help new listeners. Get a taste of everything we do here on the show, just visit Jordan, Harbinger.com start to get started or to help somebody else get started. Course, we always appreciate that. I know there's like, 500 plus episodes of this show alone to get through. So a lot of people don't know where to begin and that's why we created those starter packs, Jordan. Harbinger.com
Start today on the show, Sam Harris philosopher, neuroscientist author thinker. If you're a saint Harris fan, I hope you enjoyed this conversation and if you're not familiar with him, this should be a decent introduction to a neuroscientist philosopher, political thinker, a tough guy to label. Sometimes we actually recorded this before the election. I had some technical issues. This push the released way back. Thus the context for this one should be October 2020. It's not a bunch of political stuff. It's not a bunch of
of trump or bite and stuff so don't worry. You're not going to get thrown into that. We are definitely still going to piss off the extreme left and the extreme right? Or just the left and the right. It's hard to even know what's extreme anymore. Maybe I'm extreme extreme Center. Is that a thing? Save your outrage emails for after you're done with the episodes so that you can include everything. It's just a pro tip there. If you want to get mad, make sure you're an all-encompassing kind of angry. By the way, if you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors thinkers and creators every single week, it's because of my network. And I'm
Teaching you how to build your network for free over at Jordan. Harbinger.com course, and by the way, most of the guests on the show, they already subscribe to the course they contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company. Where you belong? Now, here we go with Sam, Harris.
I wondered how you develop your ability to articulate. So well off the cuff where you initially similar to like a stand-up comedian, and not that great at that at first. Because I think a lot of us, especially I look on Reddit, I find a lot of people going. I had to slow down this episode because of these Choice phrases or this sick burn that Sam was able to just come up with seemingly on the
Fly. Well, I'm glad you think so. I mean, II stand In Perpetual criticism of how I speak. So I'm often
By the words that actually make it out of my mouth. But I don't have any story to tell about how I came to speak the way I do. And I just I've spent so much time writing that and I think aspired to speak as closely to the way I write as possible. You never quite achieve that as any verbatim transcript of what one says proves him. It is way more like, word salad that a writer would ever wanted to be. But I was a writer first before I was
any kind of public speaker and there's just kind of an attention to the structure of what comes out that I bring into my speaking to my youth, my advantage that I'm a fairly slow talker right. So I have got a fair amount of time to get to the end of the sentence and choose my words and I find it impossible to speak quickly. I mean it's really a kind of neurological deficit of even if I knew exactly what I was going to say even if I had a script and had rehearsed it and put the words right in front of me, I actually
I can't speak as quickly as someone who speaks quickly can and always does. I mean I've had a few people on my podcast or fast talkers and it's just amazing to me. It's like a Cirque du Soleil routine that I could never never
emulate. I have the opposite problem, where I have to force myself, to slow down or when I'm doing these live shows. People will say, dude, your wpm is freaking me out right now because it's just boom. Yeah. And yeah, I also am disappointed with most of the words that come out of my mouth or the arrangement of those
The words I should say. So that's probably just a thing that podcasters are any speaker actually has?
Yeah. Yeah. But there's kind of an underlying ethic too much of what I'm doing is, I'm touching very controversial topics and I'm committed to being as rigorously honest. As I can be on, you know, whatever the topic. And so it rather often has the character of a dangerous high wire act, where I've decided to go into fairly fraud territory and decided not to
About anything and that forces, a kind of hair split in Search for nuance, which also kind of bends my speech around and makes it gives it a certain kind of character is just being enforced by the topics as well.
Do you think that there is a strong chilling effect? Not just with you, but with anyone like look, I'm largely a political and I'm sitting here before the show worried about having a conversation with you or with HR McMaster.
Stir because of this cancel culture that a sort of permeated everything now and it can result in me, losing my entire living and not being able to feed my kid, who's 14 months old because an angry mob online decided that my word choice. When I said Indian, instead of Native American, for example, was there for racist, dot-dot-dot, I'm a Nazi and should be D platformed.
Yeah. Well, there's a massive chilling effect throughout media and Tech and Academia, I mean, that is just so well attested. And I've done so many podcasts on it.
I wasn't saying there's a chilling effect on me. In fact, I've been so deliberate in protecting myself against any kind of incentives that would have created a chilling effect. I was saying the opposite. I go into this morass, knowing I'm going to hit all of these difficult spots but knowing that I'm committed to just saying what I actually think. I don't have tourettes. I'm not I'm just kind of broadcasting the most shocking things. I might think casually but I do my whole Mo really as a public-facing
Person is to be intellectually honest, right? Even when it's inconvenient to the contrary, there has been a the effect on me. And my podcast has been I have focused on these topics more than my interest would dictate. I might have zero interest in race relations and race as a topic, right? I just, I think we have to get over race. I think we need to achieve a truly race-blind Society, but I've done, I don't know how many podcasts on Race because the culture is in a hysteria over it. So
Seemed like if you just look at my podcast I seem like somebody who had a real interest in this topic. I don't at all but it's a kind of moral emergency that keeps presenting itself and it's politically. So dysfunctional that my interest in not having four more years of trump has caused me to try to help the left. Get its house in order. I can't say that I've made any progress there, but I just felt like I had to put my shoulder to the wheel multiple times, trying to get our conversation with ourselves about race and other fraud.
It's to move in the right direction. Yeah. It's kind of Amplified my speech on those inconvenient topics but it's, I'll be quite happy to retire on that front. If politics can take up less of our bandwidth going
forward. It seems terrifying. And almost like look, I'm 40. So maybe I just haven't seen enough chaos, but this seems like certainly the most chaotic time in the country that were I've been alive or old enough to understand the type of chaos. And I wonder if you think is this
Actually a more fraught time in the country's history or is it just that this is a fraught time? Plus we have social media blaring emergencies on every channel 24/7.
I definitely think it's worse than anything that I recall. I mean and may I was I'm older than you. So I was a young child in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate. So that was a mess too. And if we'd had social media at that point, you know, one can only imagine how how destabilizing would have been. But
I just think the last three and a half years have been so awful and so much of that can be late at Trump's door, but not all of it. I think social media has been the technology that has deranged us and maybe we were, as I've said several times before, we have effectively been enrolled, in a psychological experiment to which no one gave consent. And there was a so little foresight around. What each feature of this technology would
You to us, or would be likely to do, to us your everything from the, like button on word, and it's just been terrible either. Think it's been bad for society in almost every respect. We obviously have to figure out what to do about it, and just switching the platform's off is clearly not an option by, definitely share your perception that these are uniquely. But we'll during times with
the Advent of false news are fake news. It seems like we can't even agree.
We on what's actually real. And I think that's one of the scariest things for me, because when I was younger and I used to enjoy saying to somebody, hey, that's not how this works. I could look up a news source, or Wikipedia, or even a scientific paper that I could, then read digest, understand and show someone, hey, you're wrong about this. Now, the sources are white, so widely discredited, I've posted things that are true, I mean, just verifiably. True simple facts. That one would have learned in high school and I remember getting
Applies like, well, I hope you didn't see this on Google mainstream media Wikipedia or Snopes because all of that is just fake. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you're literally attacking some of the only things we can say, hey, these are reasonably accurate 99.9% of the time, as don't even look there. It's all garbage. Look at this random blog instead.
Yeah, it's really dangerous. And that, that is certainly one of my top concerns at this point. The fact that the very Foundation
Ian of epistemology appears to have broken down and that we can't even Source information that most people. Most of the time will agree is valid. You know, this extends to the New York Times at this point, this isn't just conspiracy thinking that the New York Times has become so ideological and so prone to double down on their errors, on their obvious errors. It really is shocking and I am desperate to be able to rely on
The normal organs of Journalism like the New York Times, and I find that I can't. I mean, when I know enough about a topic to see how they are distorting it politically, it makes me just as vulnerable to that same kind of challenge that you just described. Maybe if I circulate a New York Times article and someone pushes back saying this is fake news, you know, unless I know a lot about the topic at this point, I don't know which end is up anymore. I'm are, at least I'm not willing to fight over it because it's no one.
Can take the time to fact-check everything that they circulate, we have a completely polluted information ecosystem at this point. And this is what most concerns me about what's happened on the far left, maybe it's obvious. What's wrong with the far-right the far, right? Has always been terrifying and inimical to most of what we value in a open Society, right? So it's like it, you go far enough to the right, you meet just obvious, racists and anti-semites, and
Increasingly anti-government lunatics or you know, proto-fascist Army. That's just there's so little to criticize there because it's so obviously evil or evil adjacent whereas on the far left the craziness the far Fringe has moved so far in word that it has captured. The New York Times to a significant degree. You know The Fringe on the left is increasingly mainstream you know on topics like race and gender and just the reaction and an over reaction to Trump's.
Time is some of this again, can be ascribed to the malign influence of having a lunatic like Trump in the Oval Office. But he's become such a super stimulus to the left that it has deranged. The left of me now, it is essentially broken CNN, and the New York Times, I mean that, you know, the New York Times to a lesser degree, it's all Trump all the time, and there's so much to react to, with him and the reaction has become, so undisciplined that they just half of the allegations against him.
Don't stand up in, there's no Reckoning over that and the ones in the East will lose sight of the ones that do and they're in there so many opportunities to attack him. That one need never be imprecise. There's no reason to be sloppy with allegations of racism against a genuine racist, right? But the left is so sloppy that it falsifies more or less everything that they attempt to land. So it's been a mess on both sides, but I've spent much more time worrying about the left because the
left really has to get it right. Maybe the left is the wrong, designation hear me that the liberal voices in our society, which capture 90 percent 90 plus percent of Journalism and Academia, and entertainment. Right? Zero talking about Hollywood and the university system and, you know, virtually all private schools down to the high school level and journalism and science. These are the people who have to get their facts, right? And now we have our
Just prestigious scientific journals, publishing editorials that are completely deranged politically and literally science. And nature are have published articles on Race that make absolutely no sense. I mean, you just offering Maiya culpas about, you know, the systemic racism of science as though, you know, most scientists it in their Labs cracking jokes that the KKK would find funny. And then now have all been caught doing it right. It's Madness. And there's been a kind of
Hysteria that has led to a masochism and self-annihilation on the left. That again is crept. So far in word that you know. Now it's an article of faith that you know the only way to describe the United States now and its history is one of irredeemable, you know, racist atrocity as though we have stood for nothing else. You know low these nearly three centuries. That's the position you needed and then if you're a Hollywood celebrity, you need to, you know, get on Twitter and release your
Video saying that you finally realize the depth of your culpability for all of those evil. The messaging from the left on these points has been so morally. Deranged in recent months
can we repair this kind of thing? I mean when people will willingly deny what they see right in front of them on a videotape because of the cognitive bias and the frankly unwillingness to accept that their ideals conflict with reality. How do you even think you did it?
A show that said it best like can we step back from the brink? Because how do you convince somebody that what they're looking at on video is what they're actually looking at on video. When literally anyone with two brain cells to rub together? Can see what that is and they're just going. Nope. Like their brain is just rejecting
it. Well, it's surprisingly hard to parse these videos, one, the videos start and stop at, you know, arbitrary or calculated points. We simply do not know what happened before. The video is switched on or
Before the edit you're seeing starts and people's lack of understanding. If we're talking specifically about police videos that the lack of understanding about the Continuum of violence and the cops eye view of the world leads them to conclude things that you just can't conclude from these videos. And they're also unaware that we have videos of a certain sort aggressively marketed to us, right away videos of black men.
And women being mistreated or killed by cops and in particular white cops, those get Amplified to a degree that is can't possibly be exaggerated, right? They become a kind of pornography of racial grievance whereas other videos where white suspects are being killed or mistreated by cops, or when black suspects, or, you know, suspects of color are being killed and mistreated by black cops or cops of color, we're not seeing those videos, right? So people have no, they're drawn
Conclusions about the representativeness of these documents, you know in the population and they simply don't know the statistics of violence and they don't know that, you know, more white people are killed every year then black people by cops in the US. They haven't done the exercise to just discover how hard it is to think about the demographics of violence, right? So it's just it remains an open question, how we should think about police engagement with the population given
the relevant crime rates, right? I mean, it's pretty clear that the me here is just, you know, I don't know that we won't spend much time on this, but here's the picture in brief. If you have 50% of crime, violent crime, perpetrated by 12 to 13 percent of the population, which is, in fact, the status quo in the US and has been for now decades, right? What percentage of encounters with cops, would you expect that?
12 to 13% of the population to have, right? Would you expect it to be 12 to 13 percent of all, police encounters while know they're committing, 50% of the violent crimes? Would you expect it to be 50% of the encounters? Maybe not. I mean, that's what it's going to be more than their representation in the base rate of the population. And so, how one speaks about these statistics is really determined by one's background. Assumption of just, what should be the case?
Is given the level of crime in each community, and there's a much larger discussion and even more fraught to try to figure out what we can do about that level of crime, and the disparities in crime, in the various communities, and just whose responsibility is it, and how much is white racism? Still, the reason why we have this crazy disparity in crime particular in the inner city in the black community. There are so many assumptions built into everyone's experience of just watching those videos and
A reaction. So yeah, we find it impossible to talk about what seems to be, you know, depending on how you're viewing. It just a Peyton factual encounter, you see what's happening. And when I watch those videos, it's often very clear to me. What is happening? Why it's happening, why it makes sense that it's happening, how it wouldn't have been otherwise even if you change, the skin color of all participants but people who are agitated by a sense that we have an epidemic of racist violence, perpetrated against
Black men and women. By racist cops, they have a very different experience that their interest. Their eyes seem to be revealing to them totally different set of facts.
It seems very dangerous. That as a country we can't even have conversations about this. Like, even whether I agree with you or not, or have all the facts or not, this is one of those things where my entire body is like tensing up, because I'm like, oh my gosh. What are the consequences of having this discussion on any fault? In any medium, whether it's live and
Sittin on a podcast on television, it's something that if we weren't our own boss, so to speak. If we didn't own the outlet or the medium that we're using, this could easily result in us with an early retirement if we're lucky, right?
Yeah. So yeah. So, yeah, in the podcast you referenced can we pull back from the brink that was me responding to the the eruption of I think Collective delusion around the George, Floyd killing. And I had thought, I think I say it briefly the
Outside of that podcast I thought I should bring on a black intellectual to help kind of Midwife this conversation for me. That would have been the prudent thing to do. Not to just be the white guy on his soapbox talking about what's wrong with this reaction that just seemed like an act of cowardice. I knew what I wanted to say. At that point, I did the research into the data such as we have at the moment on police violence and I felt I just needed to say what I thought and then I could deal with the
Math, again, roof for the reasons, you just sketched unusually free to have these conversations or to approach these topics on podcast when we essentially own our platform. But, you know, I've had subsequent conversations with people like John McWhorter, and Glenn Lowry and Thomas chattered and Williams, and Coleman, Hughes and other several other people I could list who are black writers and academics and journalists who are really
Us and refreshingly honest on this topic and and on some level there's no substitute for having them weigh in as prominently as possible because for a certain audience, the color of your skin, no matter how careful you are and what you say, the color of your skin is entirely determined, whether you can be listened to on this topic, that shouldn't be the case. Obviously, that is the very symptom of the disease. We are now suffering that that is the
But it simply is the case, right? So, you know, I sort of picked my moments to talk about this, but here were two white guys talking about. That's what I was thinking problem of race or lack thereof in America right now, for a significant percentage of your audience, you know that framing will entirely determine whether you know, anything. I always say can be taken it, you know, face value but you put two black people in the same conversation and those conversations are happening
happening and, you know, hopefully to increasing effect because there's some great black public intellectuals out there. Now, who really should be leading our analysis of what's happening in our society now, and they're being sidelined Again by a kind of moral panic and a kind of a witch, praise. And then we have people who are thoroughly dishonest, who are being promoted to the highest levels of Journalism, and you know, who have the best-selling books in the country right now.
People like Ibrahim candy and Robyn, D'Angelo, whose these are the people who are being recommended to deprogram, you know, Fortune 500 companies and whose books are being. You know, how incoming parents of private high schools or being admonished to read their books. And these books are so deranged and arranging in how they talk about race. It's worth pointing out that these are everything being said. By these people explicitly repudiates the
The vision that until almost yesterday, all of us were taught to Champion of someone like Martin Luther King jr. I'm into the idea that the goal was to get to a time where people could be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. That goal has been explicitly repudiated. Now on the Left, Right? Know that we're being offered a vision of the future where race is indelible, right? And any hope that we would arrive in a colorblind? Society is not only fatuous, but
Obscene, right? It is a you are culpable for the evil of racism by even aspiring to be colorblind. There an original sin of whiteness that you can never cleanse. What's being offered, here is a Perpetual fragmentation of our society around this variable of race. This very concept is ruled out in principle but it is a kind of Reverse Racism. If you just imagine a white person speaking The Way eeprom candy does he would be a member of
The KKK or, you know, some Neo-Nazi front group that's how polarizing and bizarre. The framing is you're listening to the
Jordan Harbinger show with our guests and Harris will be right back. This episode is sponsored by Simple Mobile at Simple Mobile. You get the no contract Advantage, you can get a powerful Nationwide 5G Network all without a contract 5G capable device and Sim required actual availability coverage and speed may vary 5G network not available in.
Areas 5G upload speeds, not yet available. Simple Mobile out with the old in with the simple. This episode is also sponsored by by optimizers if you want to be healthy. One of the best things you can possibly do is get at least 7 hours of quality sleep every night. I know it's hard to get that much sleep. I know from experience, it's hard to get that much sleep. Your mind keeps you awake. You can't get comfortable, too hot. It's too cold. You wake up early? Can't fall asleep again. But listen, sleep is super important because your body heals itself. When you sleep, your mind does the same. If you're not getting enough quality sleep.
Keep your increasing your risk of disease. One thing I was missing was actually magnesium. I know people told me about it. I was like, yeah, whatever. I don't believe in, you know vitamins, but once I started getting enough magnesium, things really did change for me. I, you know, I track my sleep stats. Don't run to the store and buy the first magnesium supplement. You find. A lot of them are kind of craptacular. Most magnesium supplements. The use one or two cheap, little synthetic forms. They're not full spectrum. They're not going to fix the deficiency to not going to help you sleep better. There are seven unique forms of magnesium. You got to get all of them if you
The calming sleep enhancing effects, magnesium breakthrough. Bye-bye optimizers has all seven for an exclusive offer for our listeners. Go to mag, breakthrough.com, Jordan, and use Jordan tendering, check out to save 10%. This episode is also sponsored by quip. We all chew gum, but did you know that? Not all gum is created equal. Some only cover up bad breath or they're loaded with sugar that can wreak havoc on your teeth. Luckily, the oral care experts at quip have made a gum that stands out from the pack. Oh, I see what they did there. Quip gum can help prevent
Cavities tastes pretty damn good. It was only a few short years ago, they invented the toothbrush for the Modern Age over to equip. You probably heard a billion ads for those. Toothbrushes quip gum. Now comes in a Sleek dispenser you can take with you on the go. They've got a quick release button which shoots gum out. I don't know any better way to explain it. It reminds you of other candies that come in dispensers of whose brand. We probably can't mention. In this particular advertisement who wouldn't want to satisfy their taste buds with quips crunchy. Trilayer design, which sounds very fancy. And and in fact
Is and long-lasting. Mint flavor. Sugar-free zero calories. Tooth friendly Xylitol. And if you go to get quip.com, Jordan right now, you can get a free dispenser with any refill plan. That's a free dispenser at get quipped.com. Jordan G, ET Q UI p.com. Jordan, you can also find the quip electric toothbrush, refillable, floss, and more in the Oral Care aisle at your local. Walmart quip the good habits company. Now, back to Sam Harris on the Jordan Harbinger show,
You said it in an earlier podcast or book. Now I can't remember quite what it was, but our sense of being offended isn't something that anyone necessarily needs to respect, and even we should not respect our own sense of being offended. I would love for you to explain that a little bit because I love the idea that and especially right now for everyone who is definitely, right? There's going to be some continue to my audience. That's like I can't even believe what Sam Harris is saying on Jordan Harbinger show. I'm, they're drawing up their eat nasty email to me.
Right now, right? I actually enjoy hearing things that make me feel a little bit offended. It depends on what it is, of course. But I have to look at the reason why I'm offended. And sometimes the reason is because sometimes the reason is is quite frankly quite poor, I'm offended. Because I always thought one thing I know I'm being dragged Kicking and Screaming into what is actually correct through
logic well. So just to see if I can reel in some of the people who are even now fatally offended. Before I answer your question, although plan,
Flag where everyone can see it. I mean that this is the society I want to live in, I want to live in a society where we care, no more about skin color and other superficial characteristics that are often attributed or scribe to race. Then we care about hair color, right images that this and we're not living in a world where people are disposed to worry that you know a corporation like apple isn't hiring enough blondes or brunettes or
With red hair. I mean, no one is no one's checking. We don't come from a history of discrimination based on hair color but I think everyone can agree that it's a good thing. No one's checking, right, who cares? It's good that we live in a society where no one cares about hair color. In that time, you can have preferences, you can dye your hair, you can do anything you want with your hair, you could admire the hair of other people, but there is no moral or political significance, attached to hair color and that is a very good thing. And if someone told
Less that they wanted to bend us toward some possible future where people suddenly cared a lot more about hair color right? Where you had to walk on eggshells around people of a certain hair color, or your, it's not say certain things about hair or carefully, dye your hair. So, as to fit in all of that, that is a future, the door to, which is presumably closed and it would be insane to try to open it, right? That would just be fucking awful. Well, we're in that space on the top.
Topic of skin color, the way out of this predicament is not to care more and more about skin color. So we have to figure out how to break this spell and the left is running the opposite algorithm the left is telling us that no no we have to care more and more about this we have to talk more and more about this. This is the master variable and whether you want to identify along these lines or not you have to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and know that that you share something important with.
One who has a skin color that's feet of kind of vaguely the same shade as yours. And you are importantly separated from everyone. Who doesn't you have to just carry that around with you all day long and your interactions with other human beings has to be, you know, filtered through that lens at all times. I'm not willing to play that game, right? So I'm going to continue to try to live in the world, where skin color is no more important than hair color. And if that makes me,
Some kind of troglodyte in certain conversations or seem to be a troglodyte will then those are collisions. I'm willing to have because what I'm seeing advertise to me from all quarters. And again, this is coming from the New York Times and other mainstream outlets and it's coming from again journals like Nature and Science is the opposite attitude which is we have to be more and more captured by this variable of difference between people. It's just absolutely obvious to me that that is who
Heading Us in direction that is toxic and divisive and dishonest, frankly. I mean it's just it is simply not the case that we're dealing with more racism. Now than we ever have in the aftermath of a you know to term black president in the u.s. it is simply not the case that the political aspirations of black people in America have never been worse, right? And yet we're being goaded to act like they have never been worse that. Any acknowledgement of racial progress is to not understand the gravity of
Systemic racism in our society. I'm not saying systemic racism doesn't exist. I'm not saying there aren't things. We want to correct for. I mean, that the criminal justice system has some terrible problems and some terrible Legacy code. It's still running the War on Drugs, has been a disaster for everyone and a special disaster for people of color. And you know, we should declare it lost and empty the prison's of nonviolent offenders insofar as they're in there, but we have serious social problems to figure.
How to alleviate. And their alleviation is not synonymous with finding more white people, who are racist in our society. There's simply not enough racists to be creating these problems and the fact that I can predict that this weekend, there will be an inordinate number of black people murdered in Chicago, by other black people and I you can set your watch by it. The reason for that being the case is not because there are so many white racist.
Enforcing systemically racist policies that are somehow forcing people in Chicago to kill one another, right? It's just not the case. And if a, if it were the case, then obviously we should solve that problem immediately. Right? I would be the first person to want to solve that problem, but no one has offered a compelling argument as to how that is the causal chain of events in the year 2020. So we have to figure out how to solve these to rectify the the terrible inequalities, in our society with
Education and Health Care outcomes and and wealth inequality and insofar as that these are correlated with race and they are. We should want to figure out how to ameliorate that. I mean, that is just clearly, that is a pressing issue. But to Simply call people racist, people who are, who are among the least racist, people who have ever been born into any society, right? Maybe really the Academy Awards. This is a Bastion of racism. That's, the target is so dishonest.
Honest that is toxic, it's dishonesty is destabilizing for us. So anyway, that's one hobby horse, I've ridden but it is a thankless job to write it as a white person. In most contexts, you only reflexive allies are people who are captured by right-wing conspiracy thinking and or if not real racists, right? I mean, like the people who really win here is when it when the left is made, it palpably unsafe for anyone to demur.
On this particular topic, the only people who will have the courage of their convictions are actual racist and that is, you know, there are many topics where we've landed there, you know, it's not so much in the news now, but there was a time when we're dealing with the, you know, the Islamic State and intolerable level of Islamic, you know, racism especially in Western Europe, the left made any connection drawing any connection between Islam and terrorism.
You know, taboo and so, to be drawing, the honest connection there that, yeah, there's only one religion on earth. That is producing jihadism, because jihadism is only a tenant in one religion to speak. Honestly, about that puts you in the company of, you know, right wing and increasingly fascist lunatics in Western Europe, that was an awful juxtaposition with. That was something that was being forced on everyone because the left had just seated the field of any semblance of intellectual honesty on
Topic for reasons that, you know, are every bit as cultic and weird as the crazy conspiracies, you meet on the right. How do
we keep an open mind during intense debate with someone we disagree with? Because I think a lot of people listening who disagree with you. There instinct is to shut down and just go. This is garbage. I don't want to do that. And I see most people are absolutely unable to do this, even in the slightest and we as a species or at least as a nation, we're getting worse and worse at this by the minute. If social media news are any
indication. Well, it goes back.
To the question that I didn't answer, which you, you asked in reference to something I said about one's feeling of being provoked or offended and I said somewhere that your capacity to be offended is not something that anyone needs to respect and it's not even something that you should respect, right? It is simply an emotional reaction, which doesn't in and of itself have any content, right? Doesn't. It has no philosophical content. It has no, it's not the basis for an insight.
Right. It's simply a signal of salience for you, right? The fact that you're feeling out rage or anger, or disgust, or fear, or something negative in response to certain ideas, right? That doesn't tell you that the ideas are not based on facts that can be confirmed. That doesn't tell you whether a chain of reasoning is valid, you have to do further work to disentangle yourself from some unwanted opinion.
You can't just recoil and say that doesn't feel good and if you do that which, you know, as you say I mean many people are doing simply that and feel no intellectual burden to do anything more than that. But it's that is what it is to be in an unreflective and useless interlocutor, you're not advancing anything. When you're simply, you know, calling people names or reacting without argument either you can find
The whole and the argument, or you can point to the data that it that, you know, disconfirms the claims being made or you can't. And if you can't, then you, you need to be open-minded. I mean, you need to be willing to have the conversation because an unwillingness to have the conversation that guarantees political and social Division and ultimately it guarantees violence. This is something I'm you know always fond of pointing out that we really only
We have two options, we have conversation or we have violence, when it really matters. When we really have to modify the behavior of other people, we can either do it by talking to them and getting through to them and therefore engineering, a kind of convergence a shared worldview or at minimum a rational compromises at the perimeter of a shared world view or we have to force them to change what they're doing, and there's not that many tools. I mean, we're social primates that makes you
Small mouth noises that can, you know, rather often mean something to Perfect Strangers in this world. And what we have to do is figure out how we can collaborate with one another. In an open-ended way, that is allows for, you know, increasingly creative and beautiful cooperation, we need to figure out how to get eight billion, nine billion. 10 billion, remains to be seen where we're going to top out here in the near term.
Strangers to collaborate on the on the this common project of building. A Global civilization, that is less and less fragile, right? And the algorithm that so many people are running, seems to be, I'm not going to fucking talk to you if you say that. And again that just lie, when push comes to shove, that just leaves us with
violence. I mean that's terrifying, it should terrify anybody, no matter what side of the political Spectrum you're on because that's I mean this sort of discussion
The foundation of democracy in the first place, in many ways, at least according to my legal education from 15 years ago that I barely
remember, it's all a matter of ideas, rather we find compelling. We persuade one another of the wisdom or utility of various projects and allocations have resources. Raymond, this is what we're about all the time. It's everything from, you know, trying to convince your son or daughter to do their homework, or help you do the dishes, to what should we spend billions of dollars?
dollars on as a society, you know, immediately right and what should we not spend billions of dollars on and what sort of what rate of death from various causes is acceptable and what is an emergency that we have to stop everything and figure out how to solve right mean, these are all just conversations and their products Based on data, or lack of data or, you know, educated guesses or, and it's just a tissue of memes and
Statements that are found to be compelling or not for good or bad reasons. And what we have more and more politically are various Cults of bad reasons. Forming and being Amplified by social media and being becoming entrenched by our capacity. Now, to Silo ourselves based on social media, in various Echo Chambers where we're just not getting the same information. This is truly new. You
No, this is not. It's tempting to think that. Will they? Look at. This is just the same problem we had when people could decide to start listening to Republican, you know. Right. Wing talk radio or not, or watch one television channel or not. I mean, maybe this is no different than having Fox News, but it's different in that with social media. And the, you know, the algorithm that is tuned to just game. Everyone's attention in a totally bespoke way, you know, Moment by moment we're not seeing the same.
Things, right. When you go on YouTube, the algorithm is aimed at you in a in a way that is quite different than the way. It's aimed at me based on your pattern of usage and this is how people are getting fixated on things that would otherwise be Unthinkable. I mean we literally have people believing that the Earth is flat now, right? There's a whole Flat Earth Society. They, I've never even I've never encountered it myself and I consciously went and found one
Dio, that was kind of summarized in this problem for me but I'm not seeing any of this stuff and they're people who are seeing it all the time or it's you know q and on right in there you go far enough to I guess it's maybe right and left or the wrong frame work here but q and on is a cult of people who believe that there is a another Cult of people filled with Hollywood celebrities and left-wing politicians like Hillary Clinton. And the Obamas, you know, most left journalists who are
Are not only kidnapping and raping and killing kids, but eating them right or extracting, their vital Essence has. So, as to create some kind of long life potion, right? So, it's a cannibalistic Cult of pedophiles that has among its members. People like Tom Hanks, and Ellen Degeneres and the Obama's and Hillary Clinton. And this apparently is believed by a, not a small number of people not just in America, but it, you know, in Europe now based on an ability,
Bility to go down a rabbit hole on social media and never come out again. You know, and just based on the human capacity to be bewildered by seemingly credible information, I don't know how this stuff seems credible at any point to any one, but this is a not insignificant social movement that is obviously dangerous. The fact that it's possible to have a social movement like this spring up, is again, something we have engineered for ourselves and it's being gamed now.
Consciously by outside actors like, you know, the Russians and the Chinese. I mean, they're just pumping their own disinformation onto these platforms and Russian State television, you know, Artie is the most watched News Channel on YouTube. Now, it's amazing what we've designed for ourselves and it's in the fact that we can't figure out how to get out of it. Because the business model is what it is, right, a bit me. The this is where it all comes back to advertise.
Being on social media. I mean, the fact that this is the algorithm is tuned to, you know, cliques and time on site that we're prioritizing that no matter what the cost is an amazing situation we're in and one can only hope we figure out how to correct
course. Yeah, that to me is shocking. I a while ago, I had an offer of doing some kind of show or something for Artie and I said isn't that Russia Today and there's no no it's Artie now and I said well okay so is it has it changed know? We just kind of
Branded and I thought have you heard this show? Are you offering me a job in a propaganda Department of a potentially hostile? Foreign intervener here? Like what are you thinking? It one Google search would tell you that. I'm the last person to go for this and they're like, well, here's the salary. You know, here's what we're thinking in terms of compensation. I go that's why you have people that seemingly should know better creating this for you. Right. It's just purely economic, it's they know what journalists make in the United States and they go look here's a percentage so that you can forget your
Or morals and your patriotism and your sense of right and wrong.
Yeah, I miss it so much of so many depressing facts, come down to incentives in the end. And yeah, it just what has happened to journalism and politics in this moment of disaggregation of so many business models, it's really been depressing. But yeah, it's often a matter of there's where the money is coming from, or is likely to come from, or is no longer coming from. It's just that's why it's important.
At the business models straight. And to incentivize the things we want to encourage and to disincentivize the things we want to discourage and it's with the right incentives, you can get even, you know, fairly conflicted. Selfish, you know, mediocre people to behave more and more like saints. That is what why incentives are so important and, you know, conversely with the wrong incentives, you can get fairly good people here to, for
Ali, good people to behave, terribly. And you can require basically requires sainthood of people to, you know, to get them to behave well, when the incentives are wrong. And so that it's so much of what we need to do to improve Society, is not a matter, is not a matter and will never be a matter of convincing individuals on their own to behave more ethically. It's a matter of tuning the incentives so that it's just to their obvious advantage to behave more.
This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest Sam Harris will be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Babble, for most of us learning a second language in high school. And I put that in air quotes not exactly a high point in our academic career. I took French in high school and the teacher told us to memorize a table of verbs which is boring. And I thought for years that I just wasn't good at languages, joke's on you, mrs. Faulkner, I can speak a lot of languages but French is not still not one of them. Actually, I took
Herman on Babble. I lived in Germany for a year. I use Babel to refresh me a little bit babbles. 15-minute lessons are great way to learn a new language on the go. You can do it in the line for coffee. Before you fall asleep. Wherever you take your Babble, I won't. I'll let your imagination run wild where you might be spending a little bit of time, just with yourself and your phone with Babel, you can choose from 14 different languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, and German. And have got this cool speech recognition technology, which helps you improve your pronunciation and your accent right now. When you purchase
a three-month Babble subscription, you'll get an additional three months for free. That's six months for the price of three, just go to babble.com and use promo code, Jordan that's bab-ee elle.com code Jordan for an additional three months free Babble language for life. This episode is also sponsored by Blue Moon. Blue Moon is on a mission to bring some brightness to your life and break up your routine, which I think we all have plenty of routine going on right now from, it's refreshing flavor, with Valencia, orange peel for a subtle sweetness and hints of coriander Blue, Moon Belgian.
It is a one-of-a-kind beer, I've been drinking it since College. My parents actually just flew in from Michigan to visit us and to see Jaden who could barely crawl when they saw him last year. Now, Jaden's running around, he's blabbering. We all sat on the patio and enjoyed a nice cold blue moon, which from my parents was a nice treat. And for us was medication, I would say, for having an infant during a pandemic blue moon is made brighter to awaken you to the brightness in each moment. Once in a blue moon moments should happen more than once in a blue moon. Although I feel like I'm getting to see people once in a blue moon,
Now, it's nice to kind of chill outside with friends and blue. Moon is a part of that summer for me and has been since law school. Including well, let's just say, there was no particular season for beer, especially Blue Moon in law school or rather. It was always Blue Moon season reach for our blue moon. When your need for some added brightness, get Blue Moon and a light sky delivered by visiting get dot Blue Moon beer.com Jordan to see your delivery options that's yet dot Blue Moon beer.com. Jordan Blue Moon made brighter celebrate responsibly
Moon Brewing Company, Golden Colorado ale. This episode is also sponsored in part by Simple Mobile at Simple Mobile. You get the no contract Advantage those other mobile companies make you think you're in control but you're really not. They lured you in with shiny new phones and then lock you into long-term contracts. But Simple Mobile is different. You can get a 30 day plan starting at 25 bucks, you can also get the latest smartphones or if you have a compatible phone, you love. You can bring it just text byop to 611 611 to see if your phone is compatible. It's the reliability you need.
When you need it, all on a powerful Nationwide 5G network with no mystery fees, no activation fees, and no contract ever all for less money, and no contract ever 5G capable device and Sim required, actual availability coverage and speed may vary, 5G network, not available in all areas 5G, upload speed, not yet available message and data rates. May apply visit simple mobile.com privacy policy for you guessed it. The privacy policy service plan required for Activation terms at simple. Mobile.com Simple Mobile out with the old in with the simple.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to this, show your support, it means the world to us. The fact that anybody cares to listen to what we are creating here is amazing and your support of our advertisers, that keeps us going Keeps the Lights On around here. Keeps my kid in diapers and he uses a ton of diapers to learn more and get links to all the discounts you here on this show. So that you can check out the sponsors. You don't have to remember the codes. You don't have to remember the URLs, just go to Jordan Harbinger.com deals. That's where everything is all in one place. Please consider.
Supporting those who support us. And don't forget, we've got worksheets for today's episode. Just like we do for every show if you want some of the drills, the exercises. The main takeaways talked about during the episode there, in one easy place. For those of you driving jogging bench pressing. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com podcast, and now for the rest of my conversation with Sam Harris.
Reddit user gave me this question. So I'm going to I'm going to phrase it like I thought of it but I don't want to get caught out in a Reddit. So how that goes, you said I once heard you say that you'd felt pleasure and having your assumptions challenged specifically when you hold one position and you didn't want to accept an opposing viewpoint but you've been dragged to it by the sheer relentlessness of their logic. I'm wondering when the last time that happened to you, when the last time you felt like that's happened to
you. It happens a lot around this sort of trip.
Wire. I just described a few moments ago, what I have this the same thing everyone else has where I have the things I want to believe it certainly more convenient to believe these things. It's an expression of solidarity to believe these things. I know what it's I know what feels good to believe and then when I stumble upon something that feels bad rather than just plunge into being offended or recoiling from that thing or just wanting so desperately for it not to be so that I'm unwilling.
Going to pause and reflect. I have another module installed in my brain here in this is really I think mostly born of my background in philosophy which is just to become interested in it. And two, I want to find the flaw, you know, there's probably some shadow of motivated reasoning still there. If I want to find the flaw in the other argument and I'm there's an asymmetry there. Like if, if you're telling me something I already sort of believe and want to believe, you know, I'm not.
Disposed to spend a lot of time finding the flaw in that case. And that's just, you know, that is the confirmation bias that everyone tends to live with. But when I find my cherished opinions opposed by some argument or some set of facts, I'm committed to finding that. Interesting. Right. So I mean, this can extend to anything that I would be Prejudice to get, you know, against like, you know, I think Trump is the worst person who has ever been president of the United States and that is obviously
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 and he's done an immense harm to our country. Our standing in the world, our society, our credibility. And when you just look at the opportunity cost of having to spend so much time paying attention to his Madness, rather than doing other profitable things, it's been awful. But that's not to say he doesn't occasionally, do something that's good, right? Or say something that's
Factually, correct, he lies. More than any person in human history. I think that's an objective statement. I would bet a lot of money that no one can name. Someone who has lied more than he has lied in public in recent Years. Yet, you know, occasionally, he'll say something that's absolutely true or occasionally something said about him will be totally dishonest and wrong, right. He'll be unfairly besmirched by his enemies even when there's so much to condemn him for. And so yeah, when I land on one of those things, I mean
And sometimes totally inconvenient, right? Imma take the case of race, right? I think he is a racist. I think, I believe correctly, that he's a racist based on things. I know about him. Unfortunately, the things I know about him or not public in the way that they should be. Right? So, I think that, you know, I know enough kind of back Channel information about him to feel, you know, to a moral certainty, that he's a racist, not a member of the KKK necessarily, but just a racist asshole, but fully half of the allegations.
That I've seen about him being racist, made in public, seemed totally spurious and that's a huge problem and is totally inconvenient to have to make that argument because I again I think he's the worst president in human history and anything that can be made to stick against him, should stick because, you know, he's an existential threat to our democracy but take the case. That the fine people claim that is often made against him, we're in the aftermath of Charlottesville, he said they were fine people on both sides and
And the in that moment couldn't even condemned white supremacists. Rather he referred to them as fine people. This allegation is just ubiquitous against him on the left. Every journalist makes it. Joe Biden. Makes it Kamala Harris. Makes it there never criticized by mainstream media for making it and it is actually fallacious, right? If you watch that press conference, he explicitly condemns white supremacist, right? He just he does it within 15 seconds.
Of the fine people statement, right? And when he was talking about the fine people, he made it absolutely clear that he was not talking about the white supremacist. He was talking about other people who were out there, protesting their statues being taken down. And these are not the people with the tiki torches. These are not members of the KKK and he condemned white supremacists and and Nazis explicitly in that press conference, right? And yet, everyone is lying about it or they just don't know they're lying about it because they never went back to check to see.
What he actually said. So, when I get hit in the face with with something like that, which is totally inconvenient for my side, because I'm the. So I'm on the side of anything that can sink Trump should be used because, you know, again, he's almost the worst. Human being I can name, right? I just think he's scarcely human in the the Jeopardy. He puts us in on all fronts, right? For everything from, you know, deciding what to do with our nuclear weapons on down. And yet, every one on the left is
Lying about what he said in that press conference and I think he's racist on top of that. But rather than not, be honest about this, I'm committed to being honest about it, right? It's just, it's a huge problem that people have just have thrown out the rule book here and they're just trying to smear and eminent lease Mirabal person because they think it's politically Justified.
There is an article in slate star codex. I don't know if you've read this piece, but the gist is that at some point in human history,
Three humans may not have had the language or knowledge to understand that the voice in their head was in some sense themselves. Write this article posits that the imaginary friends or maybe even gods are the invention of people trying to explain that voice and there's sort of a theory in there. That's an exploration for how our theory of mine may have developed over time. And I'm wondering what you might think of this like, does the theory of mine? Does this make sense that it
Come from ancient religious beliefs. Those beliefs came into existence developed over time because of something like this. I've never heard you talk about this. So this might just be too far off base.
I don't think I've seen that article in slate star codex by. It sounds like it's reminiscent of Julian James's notion of the bicameral mind, which is kind of an old thesis, which I've never known how much credibility to give it. But I mean, the idea that the voice in our head has not
Not always felt like a self. And one point we felt like we were in communication with the gods and in this explains, some of what we can glean about human subjectivity from, you know, Greek myths, and, and Homer and all that. I don't know what I think about that. And I think the notion of the self is definitely there to be deconstructed and criticize him. And I don't think we have a self in the way that is usually,
Host and which is this AI, you know, there's no, there's no subject in the head, interior to the body that is carried through, in each moment of experience, as kind of the unchanging source of attention and reflection and The Thinker. In addition to the thoughts that arise when there is no thinker, in addition to the thoughts, the thoughts, simply a rise in Consciousness, and the feeling that there is a thinker, the feeling that there's a subject is what it feels like to not notice this process clearly and to be
Identified with each thought that arises in Consciousness. I go into that in much more depth in waking up, both the book and the app, but we have to get some distance from or at least notice an alternative to being taken in by our own opinions, right? Like we don't have to believe everyone 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. At least bracket it and wonder. Well, what would have to happen for me to no longer believe? This may look like any in what sense is this opinion falsifiable, right? And if it's not falsifiable at all well then what makes me think I'm actually living in such a way as to be in contact with.
Reality, right. Like how am I going about my my information gathering and my conversations with other people and just my moment-to-moment navigation of the world. Such that, I think my beliefs are actually responsive to the world and to, what's actually happening outside my door because I mean that that's what it is to actually believe something. You can't believe something just because you want it to be true. I mean that's why we have a phrase like wishful thinking or you know self-deception you have to believe it because
You think it actually is true, right? Whether you want it to be true or not. But that's what it is to presume to be in contact with reality. And and we have to believe things in such a way as to feel that, if they weren't true, we wouldn't believe them, which is a further Claim about our minds and our entanglement, with reality altogether. I mean, say, in order for me to think that what I believe about Trump is true. I have to believe that I stand in.
Some relationship to his existence and do you know, the, you know, everything he's doing and saying, and thinking such that, if it weren't true, I would not have come to believe this about him that I will not in some kind of, you know, stream of misinformation, systematically with, respect to him such that. I'm now just my beliefs about him, or just a tissue of fiction. So it's a presumption that you're just standing in some place relative to the facts that you claim to know something about such that,
You're not systematically misled by the facts that you know such as they are that seem to arrive at your door more and more we are entangled on platforms that are delivering information to us where we can't reliably make that claim right? Because now we have to assume that what we're seeing in our timelines is curated in such a way as to amplify and minimum bias if not misinformation it's a gaming, our attention based on what we've
What we've shown we wanted to pay attention to yesterday and that is definitely a distortion of our epistemology and we have to take some conscious steps to correct for it. And we have to follow me to take concrete example, you should be following people on social media, who you disagree with, you know, or at least people who are adjacent enough to people, who you really disagree with that. We're seeing things you disagree with. If you're only seeing things, you agree with right where it's just everything's got the top.
That you like your disposed just to forward it on even before reading the article, right? You just like the headline enough and you like the source enough that you know, this is good enough and you just going to kind of give it your Boost. You know, you're absolutely part of the problem.
In closing here you receive a lot of criticism. A lot of it is very aggressive heinous, how do you deal with it so that it doesn't affect your work and your personal life or at least minimizes the effect on your work and your personal life.
Mr. Cutter a few answers to that question that the main one is to create a platform in a business model. Unfortunately, this isn't something that I can just recommend to people because I do consider myself a kind of outlier here where I've been able to do this and it doesn't leave me in a position to give advice that people can readily follow but insofar as it's possible to create a circumstance for yourself where you're not vulnerable to the Mob. Well,
You should do that, right? Because that, that gives you the oxygen, by which you can function, right? You know, you're not, you can notice all the chaos around you much of which may be aimed at you, but you can not care because you're invulnerable or comparatively invulnerable. I mean, obviously there are things that could still take me down in the end but it would be hard. It'd be fairly extreme. So there's that, I mean just you know not to have to worry about being fired is a very big deal
Deal. And I recognize I'm in a position of immense privilege to have been lucky enough to stumble upon the technology. You know, at the right time the technology here, being, you know, podcasts and apps that allowed me to not be in a kind of a normal job, right? Where I have a boss who can be sensitive to public opinion in such a way that, you know, I get the knock on the door which says, sorry your career is over based on that last thing you tweeted or that last
You said and so many people are in that position. You may even not even getting tenure as a professor is enough of a inoculation. So that people feel free to speak. I mean, it says, I can't tell you how many tenured professors are not free to say, what they think is true in the current environment and so insofar. As you can do that, do that. But then there's this other component to it which is just recognize that so much of what is being said about.
One online is being said by people who won or are not representing the either. The it's hard to know whether it was some people probably revealing their true selves and it's their fake self that you meet in real life but more and more. I think it's a matter of people's worst inclinations or being Amplified by the platform's themselves. So, anonymity is one important, variable that kind of the mob like Behavior. And the, the social signaling that the need to Virtue signal to the Mob.
So that so much of political communication. Now, is not honest communication. It's an expression of solidarity to the group and appears to be facing outward. It appears to be, you know, worried about the target of criticism. But really what it is is just a way of cygnus of advertising that you're in good standing with your particular mob. So, you just have to recognize that it's dishonest. And it's, you're seeing the worst sides of people and we're seeing people who in real life, if you could actually sit down
Down, you know, face-to-face. And there's a covid has made this even worse because you know, there were dealing with fewer face-to-face encounters, but if you can actually sit down with these people in real life, you would meet normal people in most cases or you would meet people who are obviously crazy and therefore, not worth talking to, right? But online everyone has the same status. You know, in your Twitter feed, everyone has, you know, every tweet has the same status, whether it's coming by Blue check mark beside this person, can be a
Academic, or a great journalist or somebody. Who's they could even not even be a person that could be a bot, right? And you don't know what you're dealing with. So, so much of what's coming back at you, is something that you need not take seriously on its face. And even when it's coming from serious people, their worst inclinations are being selected for by the platform's themselves. And by the by how we've all been trained to use them, people are behaving in ways that they would not behave, they would not say this in person.
To you or about you. And it's a fun house mirror that we're in human nature and your own reputation is not being accurately reflected, if you can discount for that I'm egg. Again, it's not in some ways. The funhouse mirror is becoming reality unfortunately, so it's like used to be comforting to say that, you know, Twitter is not real life and real life is real life, but more and more given the business models and their effect on the world. And
And the nature of politics more and more, unfortunately, Twitter. And, and you know, the funhouse mirror of social media is becoming as important, if not more important than real life and in terms of the maintenance of one's reputation. So it's there's not any, a, totally console in message to draw. But, I mean, the, the, the lesson I've drawn here is that you're getting an in accurately depressing picture of Humanity online and then your disposed to react to that, right? People are not this bad in.
Real-life face-to-face. Certainly, most of the time, we've driven ourselves properly Crazy, by having been inducted into something like a reality TV show 24/7 for now years, A lot of it has to do with what social media has done to us and what the smartphone has done to us. I mean, just look at these protests and riots and look at how many people are recording them. And then ask yourself how many people would be participating in this Mayhem.
But for the, the opportunity to record themselves where I got like why do what they're doing with the recordings is another question. I mean, how many people have platforms that can be serviced by these recordings but the percentage of people recording themselves and everyone else recording the Mayhem that they're producing and whether it's burning a bus or, you know, whatever. And how much of this is being inspired by the fact that it's possible to record yourself doing this in the first place or in a Hall of Mirrors.
That our primate Minds were not designed for its having a, I think a net negative effect. There's no question. So with some course, correction is coming.
Do you ever fear for your safety? A lot of your critics are very insane. They're absolutely insane. They've made good on threats to murder other people who do and say similar things as you've said and done, especially when it comes to your critiques of religion and things like that. I mean, do you ever sit back and go? This person's looking at me,
And while I'm eating outside, what does that
mean? It's been a long time since I've eaten outside. I'm in covid land here. So it's been seven months since I can remember having had the privilege of eating in a restaurant. You know, I don't have a fear is, is virtually never my state of mind around that. I mean, no more than I need to feel fear, two, buckle, my seatbelt, when I get into a car, right? It's like I obviously I wear a seatbelt because I'm aware of all the bad things that can happen to you when your car.
Sides with some other large object but fear is not the state of mind that leads to Prudence there. But I, you know, I am very prudent with respect to my own security and my family's security. And, you know, I don't know how much you you're aware of. You know, what I've said on this topic but I've written and spoken a lot on, you know, self-defense and martial arts and firearms. And although I've gone down that particular rabbit hole, and did it a long time ago. You know, I take my personal security.
You seriously, but that's the mental state associated with that isn't fear. It's, I mean, if anything it's fun, right? Um, it's kind of a guilty pleasure. I mean, once you decide you want to be the sort of person who knows how to defend himself and, you know, knows how to work with firearms and all that. Like, then it just becomes, you know, fun to do is like a high-stakes video game to, you know, train and Brazilian, jiu-jitsu or to train with firearms, and it's just like that part's fun. But most of security is information security and being hard to
Mind and not and when you advertise where you are going to be to always have Professional Security. And so I've just decided that all comes with the territory and so it's not ownerÃs anymore. It's just a lot of boxes that I check intelligently at this point because it has you say, you know, some people are crazy and some people are ideological and I seem to have attracted both forms of of antagonist and it's definitely not a perk of the job. It's, there's a significant hassle Factor associated with it, but at this point is all just sort of priced into my my
My routine
Sam. We could go on forever, but I take it that that's not in the cards. So I do appreciate your time. This is fascinating. Next time, I'll have to have you come back and talk about Free Will and lying because those were popular. Sure. Last time we spoke. I really do appreciate it. The book will be linked in the show notes and hope to talk to you soon as
well. Yeah, yeah, it's been a pleasure Jordan, as always, thanks so much.
I've got some thoughts on this episode, but before I get into that, here's what you should check out next on the Jordan Harbinger show.
Pakistan was just one of the many bad things have happened to me in my life. I've had so many things happen and I just learn to get over it. You know, you get knocked down six times, you get up seven, and that's the only way I've ever known how to live. When I got out of the cab with the suitcases to leave. Pakistan, the guy who was there as like next time you come back, we'll show you around. You will hook you up with some girls. You have a great time and I'm humoring this guy. I'm like, yeah, sure. Next time I come back. I know for a fact I'm never going back to Pakistan. Country sucks that and Country sucks. And I'm good at finding like good things that have everywhere.
It's early in the morning and I go into International departures in a long line curving around the corner, waiting in line and the line goes all the way up, this wall to where there's Customs tables. And when the Customs officer sees mean flag makes them about six inches taller than everyone, and I get brought to another room. Finally, the guy who asked me if there is narcotics, my suitcase comes in, he's holding these two sandwich sealed things. And his exact words to me is, what is this? And I said, I don't know what it is. Yeah, sure.
He says this is all film. So why are you showing me this?
Is it came out of your suitcase?
Felt like such a idiot.
Yeah, because I thought that the DEA was gonna hook me up, you know, because they're gonna see that I'm innocent. I truly thought those guys are going to be there to help me now. It kind of wasn't guilty so that this shit doesn't happen. Innocent people, three years of my life for a crime, I didn't know. I was being used to
commit to hear the rest of one of the most harrowing stories I've ever heard in my time doing this podcast. Check out episode 147 with Eric. Oh, day here on the Jordan Harbinger show.
Thanks to Sam will be having him back again. Well, it depends how much hate mail I get for this actually, it doesn't. I'm gonna have him back again. I always do I, you know, it's funny. I do love hearing what you guys think about every single episode, but I will tell you, some of the people that make a lot of you angry are the most interesting people, and they challenge our thinking the most. And when I say you, I mean, there's a tiny, tiny, minority of extremely vocal people and it usually surprises me. It usually really
Prizes me whose controversial and who's not, some of them are obvious and some aren't you can't really do a Sam Harris episode without pissing off a ton of people so I'm ready for that. Go ahead and email me. Directly Jordan at Jordan. Harbinger.com I'm ready to hear you out. And again, thank you for listening and a big thank you to Sam Harris for joining us. Today. Links to his stuff will be in the show notes, please. If you buy any books from any authors on the show, do use the links on the website that adds up, it helps support the show. Worksheets for the episode are in the show notes. Transcripts for the episodes are also in the show notes.
No video for this one that Sam's request, you know, hair and makeup such a to do. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or hit me on LinkedIn. I do enjoy talking with all of you. On many platforms LinkedIn, seems to have the least amount of crazies, but you know what? Go ahead and DM me on Twitter, Instagram, I am there. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships, using systems, and tiny habits over at our six minute. Networking course, again, that course is free. I don't need your credit card, info. None of that. There's no up sells Jordan. Harbinger.com course.
I'm teaching you how to dig the well before you get thirsty. And most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course they contribute to this course. Be sure you join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. This show is created an association with podcast one. My amazing team is Jen Harbinger Jason Anderson Robert Fogarty Milly. Ocampo Ian Baird Josh, Ballard and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember we Rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends. When you find something useful or interesting, you know it doesn't they don't have to be your friends. A lot of us. Don't even have any friends after this panda.
MC sure with the strangers you interact with online. That's just as good. If you know somebody who's a Sam Harris fan, somebody who's interested in the subjects we covered here today, please do share this with them and I hope you find something great in every episode, please do share the show with those you care about in the meantime, do your best to apply, what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time.
Through underdogs an hour, Jason wahler here, host of your True Underdog, podcasts and YouTube channel. This is what you got in store in our episodes. I'm going to tell stories of me, growing up being Trailer Park, High School, Dropout teen dad to opening three businesses that were successful. The latest business winning Inc. 500 three out of four years, entrepreneur of the year and it's a billion dollar company. That's right. I'm going to give you tips strategies.
Geez how to overcome adversity? How to be better? How did not stay in the mud? On top of that on this show on the full episodes, we're going to have interviews with people who have overcome adversity, people that have been successful but started with things in their way things they had to overcome and struggle with. How did they get there? Check us out on iHeartRadio Spotify or apple podcast. You can go to True. Underdog.com subscribed, everything or go to YouTube at the True Underdog podcast. Bam,
