Making Sense with Sam Harris - Invalid feed

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Eric Topol about vaccine hesitancy and related misinformation. They discuss the problem of political and social siloing, concerns about mRNA vaccines, the Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA, the effectiveness of the COVID vaccines, vaccine efficacy vs effectiveness, the Delta variant, the misuse of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), concerns about long-term side effects from vaccines, bad incentives in medicine, ivermectin, government and corporate censorship, vaccine mandates, and other topics.

Eric Topol is the Founder and Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Professor of Molecular Medicine, and Executive Vice-President of Scripps Research.

As a researcher, he has published over 1200 peer-reviewed articles, with more than 290,000 citations, elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine. His principal scientific focus has been on the genomic and digital tools to individualize medicine—and the power that brings to individuals to drive the future of medicine.

In 2016, Topol was awarded a $207M grant from the NIH to lead a significant part of the Precision Medicine (All of Us) Initiative, a prospective research program enrolling 1 million participants in the US.

Prior to coming to lead the Scripps Research Translational Institute in 2007, for which he is the principal investigator of a flagship $35M NIH grant, he led the Cleveland Clinic to become the #1 center for heart care and was the founder of a new medical school there.

He has been voted as the #1 most Influential physician leader in the United States in a national poll conducted by Modern Healthcare. Besides editing several textbooks, he has published 3 bestseller books on the future of medicine: The Creative Destruction of Medicine and The Patient Will See You Now. His latest book Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again came out in 2019.

Topol was commissioned by the UK 2018-2019 to lead planning for the National Health Service’s integration of AI and new technologies.

Recently, he has been reporting insights and research findings for COVID-19 on his popular Twitter feed.

Website: drerictopol.com

Twitter: @EricTopol

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.

Any update on the project manager position?

Sam addresses questions about conversation with Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist who was a guest on the podcast.

What are your views on the so-called Muslim ban?

Sam addresses questions about Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley.

How do you think we can reasonably expect to break the echo chamber mentality and social media and online information? Do you think it's possible or do you expect our conversation to grow increasingly factionalized?

Are you still giving $3,500 each month from the podcast to the Against Malaria Foundation as you spoke about in your podcast with Will MacAskill?

One argument I've heard from someone who believes in God and an afterlife is that "energy can never be destroyed." I assume what is meant by this is that consciousness survives the body, as a soul perhaps. I think this is nonsense, but I don't really have a good enough comeback for it. What would your response be?

What would you say to someone who claims that the humanities are an unnecessary waste of money because they have no immediate practical purpose and thus should not be taught at universities or given funds for research? I refer to subjects such as history, sociology, or philosophy.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about the ethics of the anti-aging movement led by organizations such as the Sens Foundation, Human Longevity Inc., and so on.

Have you read the criticisms on the Cogito [ergo sum]? You seem pretty obsessed with the fact that one can't argue with the existence of consciousness. Is consciousness really the best choice for an irrefutable proof?

Would having a rational conversation about Islam still empower Islamists the same way the Trump-style rhetoric would?

How much of morality–in your view–do we inherit from evolution?

With large portions of society already arguing about what constitutes fake news, how will we handle future technology that makes these lines even more murky–for example, voice manipulating software or computer-generated facial expressions?

I've heard you use the term zero-sum game when talking to guests on different subjects. Would you say that letting refugees into our country is not a zero-sum game?

Are you open to doing a podcast with someone who voted for Trump?

What should our policy be with respect to Muslim immigration?

Sam Harris speaks with Shamil Chandaria about how the brain constructs a vision of the self and the world. They discuss the brain from first principles; Bayesian inference; hierarchical predictive processing; the construction of vision; psychedelics and neuroplasticity; beliefs and prior probabilities; the interaction between psychedelics and meditation; the risks and benefits of psychedelics; Sam’s recent experience with MDMA; non-duality; love, gratitude, and bliss; the self model; the Buddhist concept of emptiness; human flourishing; effective altruism; and other topics.

Dr. Shamil Chandaria is a philanthropist, serial entrepreneur, technologist, and academic with multidisciplinary research interests spanning computational neuroscience, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and the philosophy and science of human wellbeing. His PhD from the London School of Economics was in mathematical modeling of economic systems using stochastic differential equations and optimal control theory. Later he completed an MA in philosophy with distinction from University College London, where he developed an interest in philosophy of science and philosophical issues in biology, neuroscience, and ethics.

In 2018, Dr. Chandaria helped to endow the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford University, an interdisciplinary research institute focusing on the most important issues facing humanity. In 2019 he was a founder of the Centre for Psychedelic Research in the department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, a neuroscience research institute investigating psychedelic therapies for a number of conditions including treatment resistant depression. He has also funded research on the neuroscience of meditation at Harvard, and at the University of California in Berkeley.

Twitter: @shamilch

YouTube: @ShamilChandaria

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.

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/349-generosity-cynicism-and-the-future-of-doing-good

Sam Harris speaks with Chris Anderson about generosity in the age of the Internet. They talk about the new spirit of cynicism in tech and finance, the problems with DEI, the Coleman Hughes controversy at TED, the norm of color blindness, the science of generosity, the leverage of the Internet, the false opposition between selfishness and selflessness, mixed motives in giving, results vs reward, the importance of intentions, looking for the good in people, digital business models, the economics of TED, TEDx, wealth inequality, the ethics of billionaires, philanthropy at scale, the power of pledges, the arguments of Peter Singer, the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal, problems with Effective Altruism, how to improve our digital lives, and other topics.

Chris Anderson is the curator of TED. Trained as a journalist after graduating Oxford University, he launched more than 100 magazines and websites before acquiring TED through his nonprofit foundation in 2001. His TED mantra—"ideas worth spreading"—continues to blossom on an international scale, with over 3,600 videos free on TED.com and 100,000 more on YouTube. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller TED Talks and has overseen the introduction of, among others, the TEDx program, the TED-Ed initiative, and the Audacious Project, a bold new philanthropic model to inspire change at scale. His latest book is Infectious Generosity.

Website: https://www.infectiousgenerosity.org/

Twitter: @TEDchris

Related Link: Both the income pledge and the 2.5% wealth pledge can be signed at givingwhatwecan.org

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 you had to rewrite The Moral Landscape, would you change or expand on anything?

If you designed a school for kids, what would be in the curriculum?

Do you think white men really have too much power?

What is your relationship to money? How important is it to your happiness?

Political scientist Robert Pape claims that the root cause of suicidal terrorism is military occupation, do you contest his theory?

What did you think of the debate between David Frum and Steve Bannon on populism?

Which news sources do you trust and why?

The spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is far scarier than AI, will talk about this on your podcast?

Have you ever struggled with procrastination? Can mindfulness help with it?

Is it possible to understand that the ego is an illusion without experiencing it as such?

How does an intensely voluntary action feel once the illusion of the self has vanished?

Can you explain the connection between religiosity and the denial of climate change?

In the last few minutes of your conversation with Brian Greene, it seemed that one of your core beliefs about free will was shaken. Can you discuss this?

Isn't your framework of the "moral landscape" just another form of moral relativism?

When we focus our attention on consciousness, who is it that is paying attention?

If you needed to join Alcoholics Anonymous, how would you rationalize a belief in "a higher power"?

In your podcast with Rebecca Traister, you spoke about #MeToo exclusively in terms of its effects on the lives of rich and powerful men. But it has much greater implications for ordinary people. Please discuss this.

Please elaborate on what you mean when you say "look of the one who is looking" or "look for your head" in your guided meditations.

Is morality limited to human beings? For instance, can chimps behave immorally?

What are your thoughts about lucid dreaming? Does it make sense to acquire this skill?

A Dutch man wants to legally change his age from 69 to 49. Please discuss this in relation to transgenderism.