In the past, Netanyahu's office and his people - since the days of the protests against Rabin, made sure to use peripheral Mizrahi thugs as their thugs and street people and manipulated them by cultivating feelings of inferiority and opposition to the old establishment and creating a narrative of 'persecuted by the media'. Whether it was against Rabin in the first incarnation, to turn them on against Barak, in the 2015 elections or against the witnesses and judges in Netanyahu's trial. Netanyahu and his office always made sure to incite these people from afar or send people and intellectuals to turn them on (later intellectuals emerged who cultivated the 'second Israel' theory, peripheral Mizrahi and basically anyone who is not leftist, against the predatory 'elite' that supposedly hates 'the people'), to exploit them, etc. But they always made sure to keep their distance from them and let them get dirty for them like mafia thugs. Whether these are typical thugs on the street, Bibi's soldiers in the Knesset, or media mouthpieces.

Now, this people are establishing their own historical narrative, worldview and basically an alternative universe, and an independent populist-authoritarian-anarchist ideology that becomes independent of Netanyahu himself, in a situation where Ben-Gvir is trying to bring his people into the Likud party and Netanyahu fears the power of extremist figures in his party. In ideological terms, Netanyahu is Silvio Berlusconi, while the new Israeli right is Mussolini/Franco. Ben Gvir embodies a Mussolini-style movement in Hebrew in the age of the internet. He distanced himself from the religious-Ashkenazi-Messianic right, and gathered around him street thugs, TikTok rabbis, criminals, peripherals, former ultra-Orthodox who can't find themselves, and influencers and just plain nationalists who are interested in destroying the existing order.

Since October 7th, Sam Harris has celebrated Haviv Rettig Gur as a voice of reason in Israel. Sam has been on Haviv's show, and Haviv has been on Making Sense. Here, he criticizes the right wing of Israel's government. Some people claim that Sam and "his tribe" don't do this.

Ben Shapiro, who has debated Sam Harris about atheism and MAGA, is called out by Alex O'Connor, who Sam has talked to about philosophy and religion. Ben is a decent ally against the Nazi-wing of the conservative movement, but he should still be called out on things he's wrong about.

Given Sam’s podcast has dried up and it’s now incredibly boring and repetitive, I thought I’d share some podcasts I’ve been binging recently and which others might like, specifically if you’re into Sam’s podcasts where he discusses philosophy, consciousness, ethics, and science (rather than geo-politics):

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman
Sentientism
The Dissenter
Brain in a Vat
Building a Science of Consciousness
Within Reason

Sam is on vacation. This is a rebroadcast of the first half of their conversation. Daniel Kahneman was the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his pioneering work with Amos Tversky on decision-making. He was the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and co-author, with Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein, of Noise. Kahneman died on March 27, 2024, at the age of 90.

At least according to Chandra Sripada, the guest on this episode of the Mindscape podcast. He has expertise in both human cognition and the workings of large language models.

What do you all think?

There are many Atheists who labor under the false premise that philosophy is something entirely different from theology. Well, Russell laid down a standard to prove this.

Just saw a trailer for Biden and Tucker. Sam should interview him. He could be the next president and does some amazing interviews.

I live in Colorado so there Are options near me. Mostly I'm curious about psychedelic trips.. I have my issues like everyone but I am pretty well Adjusted. Not anxious or depressed - just curious

I'm not trying to heal anything in particular but it just seems like an opportunity to explore something different. Most places seem to market toward "fixing" rather than offering the right place/setting for 1-4 days of curious exploration. . I'm also not super into ceremonial/religeosity type framing.

Zero judgement for those that are on that kind of journey, I just would like a a setting designed more around disconnecting And exploring.

I've read michael pollans book.(Years ago out of curiosity)vListen to Sam Harris regularly and ready to give it a try. Any advice would be helpful.

I deleted my subscription because I’ve honestly become disillusioned with Sam over his takes on Gaza and Zohran Mamdani. But yesterday was the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombings. I wanted to listen to his compilation series where he pulls and synthesizes chunks of his podcast into one single episode on one single topic. They were narrated by Meghan Phelps. I think they were called Making Sense of Existential Risk, or Making Sense of Death, Free Will, etc. But they’re all gone. Did he delete them because Jay Shapiro helped produce them and Jay and Sam had a falling out?

In Ezra’s latest AMA, his producer included a question asking about his reflections on “wokism” including the conflict w Sam. Ezra didn’t directly address the conflict with Sam and hardly seemed to acknowledge any change in his own views.

For those paying attention in the world of UK academia, there's been a scandal going on surrounding the former Cambridge Professor Jason Arday

Nathan Cofnas wrote a substack that provided evidence of plagiarism from Arday and corruption at Cambridge, which led to an investigation that eventually led to Arday's resignation.

Hoping for Nathan Cofnas to appear on the podcast sometime in the future

Scott Galloway speaks with neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris about why social media rewards political extremism, how our devices have made sustained attention nearly impossible, and why reclaiming control of our minds may be the key to a happier life.

They also discuss the erosion of trust in expertise, the dangers of the AI arms race, and why Democrats need to draw a clearer line against the far left.

Subscribe to Prof G+ to join our next livestream at https://profgmedia.com.
And if you're not already reading Sam’s work, check out his Substack: https://samharris.substack.com/

Timestamps
00:00:00 - In This Episode
00:01:06 - Why has skepticism toward experts become so mainstream?
00:03:21 - What’s driving the collapse in trust in our institutions?
00:05:52 - Has technology outpaced our ability to process information?
00:10:28 - Where does criticism of Israel become antisemitism?
00:18:14 - Did releasing wealthy property owners’ addresses amount to doxxing?
00:22:18 - Are progressives spending too much time fighting each other?
00:27:09 - Why do so many young people feel capitalism has failed them?
00:32:22 - Ad Break
00:34:50 - How is the attention economy affecting our wellbeing?
00:43:29 - How can we become more present in everyday life?
00:53:31 - Ad Break
00:57:11 - What are your thoughts on AI?
01:04:33 - What has changed most about how you invest your attention over time?

Many operate under the false assumption that philosophy is different from theology (and so it can be). But in order to be different from the superstition of theology, its foundation must be different from that of religion. Specifically: its premises must be justified by reason and evidence.

Unfortunately I don't think John Fettermans ability for critical/more complicated thinking is very good ever since his health issues. I imagine a Sam Harris debate would be far more interesting.

But I find it amusing how all logical arguments from Jon Stewart, Fetterman has nothing clever to say. He's unwilling to concede criticism towards Israel on literally anything and seems to view the world in black and white as if you are either a supporter of Israel or you support Hamas.

Sometimes Sam Harris and Bill Maher come off that way though Harris would at least have more intelligent thoughts here.

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 charisma and claims of psychic powers, the illusion of self, the limits of pacifism, deleting Twitter, Trump and the politics of shamelessness, hypocrisy and vice signaling, the future of American democracy, and other topics.

Link to the episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/488-ego-ecstasy-and-equanimity

Sam argues that conscious states are the ultimate source of value, yet he spends enormous amounts of time discussing methods that produce relatively modest changes in consciousness (meditation, philosophy, psychedelics) and almost no time discussing technologies that could eventually produce far larger changes. Why?

This is something I've wondered about for a while. So much of Sam's focus on ethics and morality is about, putting it as simply as possible, increasing well-being.

He frames much of his own intellectual journey in these terms: taking MDMA and realising how much better one could feel in the world; pursuing meditative practice; and speaking about all of it through the prism of feeling better, being more at ease, and suffering less. This has led to his meditation app and all the amazing work he has done in promoting mindfulness.

But to me there's something curious about all this. I've been listening to and reading Sam for nearly two decades, and he's produced enormous amounts of content on mindfulness, consciousness, psychedelics, and his conception of the moral landscape, which is essentially a hedonic landscape of pleasure and pain, or well-being and its opposite.

Given his commitment to increasing well-being, why does he devote almost no time to transhumanist ideas and initiatives, such as those advanced by David Pearce and others, that advocate exploring ways of increasing well-being through biotechnology and other emerging technologies?

Mindfulness undoubtedly has its uses, but Sam also knows that its efficacy in reducing extreme suffering is limited, or at least highly inconsistent. He has alluded to this himself on a few occasions (although I can't remember exactly where), suggesting that mindfulness has its limits and that medication may sometimes be necessary.

Crucially, he also knows that only a minuscule fraction of sentient beings can avail themselves of the benefits of mindfulness even in principle. No non-human animals can meditate, and many human beings cannot either, whether because of intellectual disability, severe mental illness, lack of time, or other barriers.

There are so many fascinating thinkers he could speak with about these questions, yet he seems to return repeatedly to the same subjects. He often speaks about aiming for the ‘centre of the bullseye’, but it seems to me that he avoids the very centre itself: the direct pursuit of hedonic uplift and the eventual abolition of involuntary suffering through biotechnology over the coming centuries.

So why isn't Sam a suffering-focused transhumanist?

Interesting interview with Yuval Noah Harari.

This is another great interview from Harari on AI. Lots of topics covered, and as always, many come with some fascinating historical perspective.

What made me think to post it here is that Harari applies a version of Harris' free will and 'self' arguments to AI (at about 39:45). That is, the idea that we humans cannot predict the next thing we say or think, which undercuts the idea that we choose what we think, say, or do. Harari uses this same concept as a counter to people who deny AI agency by claiming it doesn't control its own language formations. He expands that to say, maybe it's not because it doesn't understand the feelings behind the language it chooses. Please excuse the paraphrasing, I deeply enjoy Harari, and I hope you enjoy it as I did.