PODCAST · science
Making Sense with Sam Harris
by Sam Harris
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and five-time New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the mind, society, current events, moral philosophy, religion, and rationality—with an overarching focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. Sam is also the creator of the Waking Up app. Combining Sam's decades of mindfulness practice, profound wisdom from varied philosophical and contemplative traditions, and a commitment to a secular, scientific worldview, Waking Up is a resource for anyone interested in living a more examined, fulfilling life—and a new operating system for the mind. Waking Up offers free subscriptions to anyone who can't afford one, and donates a minimum of 10% of profits to the most effective charities around the world. To learn more, please go to WakingUp.com. Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in ne
Episodes
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#498 — More From Sam: Bond Villains, Useful Idiots, Firing Squads, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss Alex Gibney's documentary on Elon Musk, Dara Horn's insights into antisemitism, the Democrats' Hasan Piker problem, Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani, the Pentagon's plan to livestream a...
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#497 — The Confidence Man
Sam Harris speaks with Alex Gibney about his new documentary, Musk. They discuss Sam's former friendship with Musk, the line between visionary and con man, the myth of Tesla's founding, the staged self-driving video, Musk's lurch to the right, DOGE and the dismantling of USAID, his feud and...
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#496 — The Oldest Lie
Sam Harris speaks with Dara Horn about antisemitism, Jewish identity, and the failure of institutions. They discuss Horn's new book, why Jews predate the categories of religion and nationality, antisemitism as a lie rather than an ordinary form of bigotry, why DEI failed Jewish students, the...
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#495 — Foreign Policy for Sale
Sam Harris speaks with Anne Applebaum about corruption, authoritarianism, and America's retreat from the world. They discuss her Atlantic cover story, the revolutionary project behind Trump's second term, US support for Europe's far right, the AfD, European rearmament, the state of the war in...
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#494 — A Coin Toss for the Future
Sam Harris speaks with Ryan Greenblatt about AI misalignment and the risk of losing control of increasingly capable systems. They discuss the Hugging Face incident, the spectrum of concern about AI risk, why companies are racing ahead despite high odds of a, reward hacking, the distinction…
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#493 — Two Reasons to Meditate
Meditation can help us live better. It can also help us understand what is true about our own minds. These motivations might seem fundamentally different, but Sam explains why they're two aspects of the same project. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to...
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#492 — The Second Plane, 25 Years Later
On the 25th anniversary of September 11th, Sam discusses the significance of the second plane, the writing of The End of Faith, the failure to take jihadist belief seriously, the costs of the war on terror, the abandonment of America's Afghan allies, the continuity between 9/11 and October 7th…
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#491 — The Suicide of the Left
Sam Harris speaks with James Kirchick about the far left's growing influence over Democratic politics. They discuss Kirchick's article "The DSA Is a Parasite," the group's platform and foreign policy, entryism, the alliance between Islamists and the far left, Third Worldism, Zohran Mamdani,...
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#490 — Lies, Bulls**t, and the Rule of Law
Sam Harris speaks with Preet Bharara about the collapse of good faith debate in American politics. They discuss the fragmentation of media, the treatment of Anthony Fauci, the rush to prosecute political opponents, Trump's self-dealing, why indictments strengthened Trump, lying vs bullshit,...
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#489 — More From Sam: A Fabulist at Cambridge, the Strait of Hormuz, AOC in 2028, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss the death of Cambridge professor Jason Arday and the institutions that promoted him, America's deteriorating position in the war with Iran, the witch hunt against Anthony Fauci, AOC's…
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#150 — The Map of Misunderstanding (From the Archive)
From the archive: In this 2019 episode, Sam Harris speaks with Daniel Kahneman at the Beacon Theatre in NYC. They discuss the replication crisis in science, System 1 and System 2, where intuitions reliably fail, expert intuitions, the power of framing, moral illusions, anticipated regret, the...
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#488 — Ego, Ecstasy, and Equanimity
Sam Harris speaks with Neal Brennan about the experiences that shaped his life and work. They discuss Sam's mother's television career, growing up with an absent father, his struggles with perfectionism, his first experience with MDMA, dropping out of Stanford, meditation retreats, spiritual...
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#487 — Is AI Already Conscious?
Sam Harris speaks with Cameron Berg about whether AI systems are or could become conscious. They discuss self-reports in LLMs, what models say when deception is switched off, the "bliss attractor" state, consciousness and sentience, the hard problem of consciousness, parallels between neural...
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#486 — Luck All the Way Down
Sam Harris speaks with Kathryn Paige Harden about behavioral genetics, moral luck, and the problem of blame. They discuss Harden's book Original Sin, the controversy over Charles Murray and Ezra Klein, why behavioral genetics remains taboo, the meaning of heritability, nature and nurture as...
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#485 — The New Science of Cancer
Sam Harris speaks with Siddhartha Mukherjee about the science of cancer. They discuss the updated edition of The Emperor of All Maladies, whether cancer is one disease or many, why prevention is so hard, inflammation and air pollution as carcinogens, the myth that cell phones cause cancer, liquid...
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#484 — Artificial Intimacy
Sam Harris speaks with Paul Bloom about our relationships with AI and the future of human connection. They discuss the surprising pace of AI progress, AI companions as a remedy for loneliness, the importance of mattering to other people, digitally resurrecting the dead, whether AI can be…
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#483 — The Knots We Tie Ourselves Into
Sam Harris speaks with Alain de Botton about the psychology of unhappiness, the secular world's discomfort with ecstasy and ritual, psychedelics as a tool for self-discovery, Freud's legacy, AI as the ultimate mirror, the case against meritocracy, the cancel culture purity trap, the psychological...
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#482 — More From Sam: The Iran Deal, College in the AI Age, Mamdani's DSA, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss topics from Making Sense Community, including one-world government, the value of a degree as AI reshapes careers, and factory farming ethics, along with Mamdani's DSA-aligned candidates,...
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#481 — Sam Harris Receives the 2026 Richard Dawkins Award
Richard Dawkins presents Sam Harris with the 2026 Richard Dawkins Award at a live Center for Inquiry event. After the tribute, the two friends discuss consciousness and epiphenomenalism, AI and the Turing test, the scientific basis of morality, the failures of democracy and Trump's corruption…
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#480 — The Economics of Everything
Sam Harris speaks with economist and Substack writer Noah Smith about the U.S. national debt, wealth inequality, and the economic consequences of AI. They discuss the mechanics of debt and inflation, the case for fiscal austerity, why the U.S. squandered low interest rates, modern monetary…
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#479 — When Robots Take Over
Sam Harris speaks with Vinod Khosla about AI, economic disruption, and political risk. They discuss the prospect of mass job displacement, a trillion-dollar policy framework to redistribute AI's gains, the failure of the California wealth tax, the corporate capitulation to Trump, Elon Musk's...
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#478 — The Psychedelic Mind
Sam Harris speaks with Robin Carhart-Harris about psychedelic research and its therapeutic potential. They discuss the current state of the field, the FDA denial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, the critical role of set and setting, risks for vulnerable populations, the REBUS model of how...
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#477 — More From Sam: Iran's Unraveling, The Gaza Information War, AI-Generated Music, and More
Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence against civilians during the October 7 attacks (33:49 - 34:35). Listener discretion is advised. In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss the Trump administration's...
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#476 — The Bittersweet Age
Sam Harris speaks with Susan Cain about writing, creativity, and what AI means for human culture. They discuss the future of books and reading, the tells AI inherits from good writers, why the advent of AI may spark a revival of the humanities, following your bliss, the ethics of curing sadness,...
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#475 — The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Sam Harris speaks with Michael Pollan about consciousness, the mind, and the self. They discuss Pollan's new book, the relationship between consciousness and intelligence, whether consciousness is a product of evolution, the role of psychedelics in consciousness research, AI and the question of...
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#474 — More From Sam: Hasan Piker, Islamism, Making Sense Community, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss the launch of Making Sense Community, Sam's Ben Shapiro conversation, the New York Times's embrace of Hasan Piker, Zohran Mamdani's approach to Islamism, the misuse of the word "genocide,"...
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#473 — Money, Power, and Moral Failure
Sam Harris speaks with Lloyd Blankfein about finance, politics, and the state of American society. They discuss Blankfein's memoir, Goldman Sachs and its role as a market maker, the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the AI investment bubble, wealth inequality and the rise of trillionaires, the crisis…
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#472 — Strange Days on the Right
Sam Harris speaks with Ben Shapiro about their pre-election debate and the fractures on the right. They discuss Trump's second term surprises, familial corruption, tariff policy, the ideological world of Tucker Carlson, the spread of conspiracism on the right, antisemitism as the ur-conspiracy...
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#471 — The End of History, Revisited
Sam Harris speaks with Francis Fukuyama about liberal democracy, American politics, and global order. They discuss the misunderstood thesis of "The End of History," how conservatism has mutated into ethno-nationalism, the self-defeating extremes of both identity politics and neoliberalism, the...
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#470 — Democrats at a Crossroads
Sam Harris speaks with Rahm Emanuel about American politics, the state of the Democratic Party, and the 2028 presidential race. They discuss Emanuel's possible presidential run, identity politics and the left's cultural cul-de-sac, the Mississippi reading miracle, antisemitism on the left and...
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#469 — Escaping an Anti-Human Future
Sam Harris speaks with Tristan Harris about the dangers of AI and the race to build it. They discuss the new documentary The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, the lessons of The Social Dilemma, the arms race dynamics between AI labs, the "intelligence curse" and its implications for…
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#468 — More From Sam: Gratitude, Bad Conversations, Conspiracy Addiction, Waffle House Teleportation, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss how to cultivate gratitude and navigate anxiety in uncertain times, the role of mindfulness in coping with AI-driven job displacement, the slowing of religious decline in America, a FEMA...
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#467 — EA, AI, and the End of Work
Sam Harris speaks with William MacAskill about effective altruism, AI, and the future of humanity. They discuss the post-FTX recovery of the EA movement, global health and pandemic preparedness, the limits of quantifiable ethics, the intelligence explosion, risks of concentrated AI power, what a...
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#466 — What Is Technology Doing to Us?
Sam Harris speaks with Nicholas Christakis about technology, society, and human nature. They discuss the harms of modern communication technology, polarization and anomie, how AI agents can improve human cooperation, the social implications of humanoid robots, Christakis's experience at the…
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#465 — More From Sam: Iran, Jihadism, Conspiracism, AI Disruption, the Manosphere, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss the Iran war and the Trump administration's shambolic messaging, antisemitism and moral confusion on the left and right, the spread of conspiracism, finding contentment in uncertain times…
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#464 — The Politics of Pragmatism and the Future of California
Sam Harris speaks with Matt Mahan, mayor of San Jose and Democratic candidate for governor of California, about governance, pragmatism, and California's policy failures. They discuss the dysfunction of progressive governance, the homelessness crisis and what San Jose has done to reduce it, the...
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#463 — Privatizing the Apocalypse
Sam Harris speaks with Rob Reid about biosecurity, pandemic risk, and the alarming fragility of our defenses against biological catastrophe. They discuss the controversial USAID program DEEP VZN, the dangers of gain-of-function research, open science norms that could arm bad actors, the role of…
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#462 — More From Sam: The Iran War, American Amorality, Addressing Hopelessness, Tucker, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss whether the U.S. was right to take military action against Iran, the new era of American amorality, antisemitism on the left and right, Tucker Carlson's provocative interview with Mike...
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#461 — Dictators Always Tell You What They'll Do
Sam Harris speaks with Garry Kasparov about the erosion of American democracy and the global authoritarian threat. They discuss Trump's systematic corruption, the GOP's moral collapse, the 2026 midterms as a decisive moment for democracy, Trump's entanglement with Russia and Putin, what a…
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#460 — When the Center Cannot Hold
Sam Harris speaks with Jonah Goldberg about the state of American conservatism and the Trump presidency. They discuss the politicization of federal institutions, the erosion of legal norms, the schism between Never Trump conservatives and the nationalist right, infighting over figures like Nick...
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#459 — More From Sam: Corruption, Immigration, The End of White-Collar Work, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss Trump's cryptocurrency dealings with the UAE and their national security implications, AI timelines and the looming end of white-collar work, the impact of Trump's immigration crackdown on…
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#458 — The Bulwark Against MAGA
Sam Harris speaks with Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller about Trump and the future of American politics. They discuss the origins of The Bulwark, the bewildering psychology of Trump's base, the new era of authenticity, memory-holing January 6th, how media broke politics, why Kamala Harris should…
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#457 — More From Sam: The Epstein Files, The Newsom Factor, Don Lemon's Arrest, AI Market Disruption, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss Sam's unexpected appearance in the Epstein files, the revolting behavior of various public figures named, the political viability of Gavin Newsom in 2028, the wisdom of celebrity political...
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#456 — American Fascism
Sam Harris speaks with Jonathan Rauch about the emergence of fascism in American politics. They discuss Rauch's article, "Yes, It's Fascism," the 18 criteria of fascism, the glorification and unapologetic use of state violence, "might is right" foreign policy, the politicization of law…
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#455 — More From Sam: Guns, Propaganda, AI, and Power Unbound
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the lack of outrage from gun culture, the escalating humanitarian crisis in Iran, Melania Trump's pay-to-play documentary deal, the societal...
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#454 — More From Sam: Minnesota, Greenland, Iran, S**thole Countries, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron dive into the chaotic start to 2026. They discuss the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the Trump administration's response and rhetoric, the "evil Chauncey Gardiner" approach to acquiring Greenland, the potential fracture of...
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#453 — AI and the New Face of Antisemitism
Sam Harris speaks with Judea Pearl about causality, AI, and antisemitism. They discuss why LLMs won't spawn AGI, alignment concerns in the race for AGI, Pearl's public life after the murder of his son Daniel, the post-October 7th shift toward open anti-Zionism, the overlap between anti-Zionism…
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#452 — Is Wokeness Finally Dead?
Sam Harris speaks with John McWhorter about language, ideology, and moral certainty. They discuss the rise and persistence of "wokeness" and DEI, the legacy of George Floyd's death, the role of social media in amplifying moral panic, how identity shapes perceptions of Israel-Palestine, the...
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#451 — The One Resolution That Matters Most
As digital distraction increasingly fragments our attention, Sam explains why mindfulness is a practical skill for reclaiming clarity and presence. Begin a mindfulness practice using the Waking Up app, and make training your mind the foundation for everything else in the year ahead. If the Making...
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#450 — More From Sam: Resolutions, Conspiracies, Demonology, and the Fate of the World
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss Sam's 2025 New Year's resolutions, the benefits of meditation, Sam's conversation with Ross Douthat, AI risks, Tucker Carlson's midnight encounter with a demon, the fracturing on the right,...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and five-time New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the mind, society, current events, moral philosophy, religion, and rationality—with an overarching focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. Sam is also the creator of the Waking Up app. Combining Sam's decades of mindfulness practice, profound wisdom from varied philosophical and contemplative traditions, and a commitment to a secular, scientific worldview, Waking Up is a resource for anyone interested in living a more examined, fulfilling life—and a new operating system for the mind. Waking Up offers free subscriptions to anyone who can't afford one, and donates a minimum of 10% of profits to the most effective charities around the world. To learn more, please go to WakingUp.com. Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in ne
HOSTED BY
Sam Harris
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Making Sense with Sam Harris have?
Making Sense with Sam Harris currently has 514 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Making Sense with Sam Harris about?
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and five-time New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the mind, society, current events, moral philosophy, religion, and rationality—with an overarching focus on how a growing understanding of...
How often does Making Sense with Sam Harris release new episodes?
Making Sense with Sam Harris releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 514 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
Where can I listen to Making Sense with Sam Harris?
You can listen to Making Sense with Sam Harris on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Making Sense with Sam Harris?
Making Sense with Sam Harris is created and hosted by Sam Harris.
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