Lex Fridman - Sam Harris

1)      Sam Harris discusses the two different forms of empathy - the cognitive form which is a species of reason and emotional contagion which is a kind of emotional response to another's emotions. Harris argues that both forms of empathy are important, but emotional contagion can be dangerous because it can lead to polarization and can be easily manipulated by those who know how to elicit a certain emotional response. He suggests that reason is ultimately more effective at making a net positive impact on the world because it allows us to understand and navigate relationships with others more effectively.

2)      Sam discusses how empathy is a flawed guide for ethical behaviour and intuitions due to emotional social contagion. He provides a clear example of how we find stories with a single identifiable protagonist more compelling than data, making us more altruistic towards them. However, a genocide raging in a foreign country does not elicit the same level of compassion. He suggests that reason is a better tool for making big decisions, but he would not want to dispense with empathy entirely. Ethical prioritization of one's nearest and dearest might be optimal, as it is hard to be completely dispassionate when it comes to our family.

3)      Harris discusses the importance of fairness and norms in a society. He argues that while there are moments of collective emergency where fairness and norms may be temporarily suspended, in normal life, we want a system that protects the interests of strangers and promotes fairness. However, he notes that empathy for other people's world views is also crucial to understanding why people hold certain beliefs, even if those beliefs are based on bad reasons. Harris uses the example of Trump to explain why millions of Americans bought into his myth of being a brilliant businessman who could change things. He believes that having empathy for their frustration about not having their hopes and dreams actualized is essential even if their beliefs are not intellectually defensible.

4)      Sam discusses the phenomenon of the Trump presidency and how it reflects a bad state of affairs in society. While here cognizes that people have different life experiences and beliefs, he believes that empathy and compassion are important to embody. He also acknowledges the pushback from Trump supporters who argue that chaos is necessary to shake up the corrupt bureaucracy and elites that run the government. Harris agrees that democracy is not ideal in all situations but thinks that electing someone as grossly incompetent and malevolent as Trump was a bad bet, especially given the public evidence of his character spanning decades. Ultimately, he believes that Trump lacks necessary moral and psychological tools like empathy and reason.

5)      Harris discusses the importance of having wisdom and compassion, which he believes are lacking in President Trump. He argues that society should not promote people who are far outliers in pathological terms to the highest positions of power, but rather those who are deeply informed and usually curious. He also acknowledges the challenges of navigating a corrupt information space and understands why people are confused and impatient. Harris also addresses the meme that Trump broke his brain due toTrump derangement syndrome, but he dismisses it as a clever meme that throws the problem back on the critic rather than acknowledging the negative impact of Trump on society.

6)     Harris shares his concerns about former President Donald Trump and those who continue to support him. He believes that those who still support Trump after his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power were deranged in some way. Harris also mentions his worries about people who find Trump amusing and do not take his actions seriously. He believes that somepeople are entertaining themselves to death while important issues with life and death consequences are at play. Harris emphasizes the need for serious moral leadership from politicians and experts to rebuild institutions and regain trust in them.

7)      Harris discusses the value of authority in science and the paradox that often comes with it. He believes that people misunderstand how authority is valued in science, which creates confusion and leads to criticism. Harris also shares his perspective on the situation of January 6th, suggesting that Trump's behaviour may have simply revealed the fragility of democracy rather than his own malevolence. He compares Trump to an "evil Chauncey Gardener" who gets promoted to immense power in Washington because of people's misinterpretation of his simple gardening aphorisms as political genius. Despite having a certain type of genius, Trump is more of a spectacle creator than a totalitarian figure.

8)      Sam discusses the Trump administration's attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election and the vulnerability of the US political system to a competent and sinister leader. He highlights how the current political structure relies heavily on norms while civility is required rather than laws to manage the country. Harris points out that although Trump's presidency was filled with many norm violations, the majority of his actions remained legal.

9)      Harris discusses the shocking details revealed in several books about the last hours of Trump's presidency and expresses his embarrassment about the event. He also talks about the nihilism and cynicism behind some people's motivation to cheerlead the event and emphasizes the need to be deeply critical of such behaviour. When asked about bridging the division caused by Trump, Harris admits that he has tried but failed to reason with people captivated by Trumpism's personality cult, but he agrees that showing empathy can be a powerful tool in winning people over. Harris acknowledgesthat he agrees with some of Trump's policies, such as taking China seriously as an adversary and having control over borders, but he also points out that onmany other issues, Trump has demonstrated fewer good qualities than virtually anyone he can name.

10)   The issue with Trump is not so much the person himself but the effect he has on everything he touches. Trump has a superpower of destabilizing and compromising the integrity of almost anyone who comes into his orbit. While there is a need for a proper house cleaning of the system, we need smart, well-informed, and well-intentioned people to do that job. The corruption that Joe Biden is accused of cannot possibly balance out with the scale of corruption associated with Trump. Even if there were evidence of corruption on the part of Hunter Biden or Joe Biden, it cannot be compared to the litany of indiscretions present on Trump's side.

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11)   Sam Harris and Lex Fridman discuss the comparison between the potential corruption of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Harris argues that there is no comparison, with Trump's corruption far surpassing any of Biden's potential wrong doings. However, Fridman points out that corruption can also exist beneath the surface, such as the military industrial complex, and highlight that those who only seek wealth and power often don't care about the risks associated with their actions. They also discuss Trump's potential nuclear threat, given his repeated questions to his generals about using them, which Harris deems an unnecessary risk.

12)  Harris discusses the need for good incentives in the US system to have non-pathological people navigate against bad incentives. He admits that his support for the war in Afghanistan was, in hindsight, ambiguous and likely a fool's errand. While there were signs of progress in Afghanistan, changing a culture at gunpoint is nearly impossible, and the war's failures illustrate the need for good incentives. The conversation shifts to Twitter, censorship,and the potential for bias with AI. Harris argues that Twitter is not as important as people think, and it will always be susceptible to bias without perfect AI.

13) Sam Harris discusses his decision to delete his Twitter account and the impact it had on his life. Even though he only tweeted about once a day on average, he found that the constant stimulus of the platform was intrinsically fragmenting of time and attention, and he was constantly checking it to see what 200 smart people he followed were paying attention to. He found that even the good parts of Twitter were bad in the aggregate because it was fragmenting his attention to the point of detracting from his sense of being in the moment. Harris realized that most of the controversies and problems that had wreaked havoc on his professional and personal life were due to Twitter, and he recognized that most of what he felt he had to respond to was totally specious.

14)  Harris discusses his experience with using Twitter and how it became a "machine for manufacturing unnecessary controversy." Harris explains that while the platform promised dialogue and communication, it ended up being an insidious tool that changed the way he felt about people both known and unknown. He states that the false information on Twitter about how dishonest and unethical people can be was damaging and turned ordinary people into sociopaths. Therefore, Harris concludes that while it is possible to use social media without being consumed by it, it is not worth the negative impact it can have on individuals and their perspectives.

15) Harris discusses the negative effects of Twitter and how it can be easily misconstrued with limited context. He explains that people's attention spans are fragmented and they lack the time to fully understand the full picture, leading to the temptation to react quickly to clips without knowing the full story. This is a failure of ethics, as people are too lazy to spend the time to understand what is being said fully. Even prominent people like Elon Musk can be swayed by malicious clips, and Samadmits that he too has fallen victim to this in the past. Harris fears that we are now living in a world where people are living and dying by clips, and we need to be more vigilant when consuming media in this way.

16) Harris discusses the dangers of misinformation and the potential of deepfakes in the age of AI. He argues that we are on the cusp of a "misinformation apocalypse" where it will be difficult to distinguish what is real and what is fake. People cannot function properly without a sense of what is true, and misinformation can lead to devastating consequences in areas such as medicine. Harris also touches on the importance of expertise in science and rationality, acknowledging that credentials do not necessarily equate to the truth, but expertise and knowledge are still crucial in making rational decisions.

17) Sam discusses the importance of expertise and deferring to experts in areas where the stakes are high, such as public health issues or geopolitical emergencies. He emphasizes that there is a significant difference between real experts who have done the work to understand a domain and non-experts who may have good intentions but lack the necessary training and knowledge. However, Harris notes that there is a current display of failures of expertise and institutions being captured by political ideology, which can discredit the concept of expertise. Nonetheless, he stresses the value of real experts in situations where there is anything to know about anything.

18) Lex and Sam discuss the value of doing one's own research, particularly in the context of depression and the COVID-19 pandemic.Harris emphasizes that while experts in the field can provide valuable information, it is also important to challenge ideas and consider different solutions to problems. He acknowledges that there may be conflicts in the information provided by different experts, but encourages individuals to engage in a good faith interpretation of the available data. However, Harris also cautions against conspiracy thinking and emphasizes the importance of recognizing when authorities may discredit themselves or be wrong.

19) Harris discusses depression and the various approaches to treating it, noting that it is a multifactorial problem and different levels of influence can be used to tackle it. He points out that there are clinical level depressions for which we do not have good tools. He also touches on the pandemic and the complexities involved, indicating that it is a simpler problem than depression. He expresses his concern about our ability to respond to a truly scary pathogen in the future and blames the current dysfunctional situation on incompetence, misaligned incentives, and plain vanilla dysfunction. Additionally, he voices his opinion that reasonable and difficult conversationson difficult topics with people like Brett Weinstein have become dogmatic and emotional in style, leading to his disappointment.

20) Sam and Lex discuss their concerns about experts and pseudo-experts in society. Harris expresses his belief that experts have failed at communicating, rather than the actual work they have done, and feels that he and Bret Weinstein have the tools to do good thinking about the problems that face our world. However, Harris is sceptical of many experts, pointing out that anyone with the right credentials can champion any idea, regardless of its credibility. They also discuss the issue of transparency and pseudo-transparency given our current information ecosystems, leaving the question of whether we can get things done with this level of transparency as an open one.

21) Lex and Sam discuss their different approaches to handling public criticisms and conflicts, particularly regarding controversial figures like Elon Musk and Kanye West. While Harris believes in privately addressing issues before bringing them into the public sphere, he also critiques Fridman's philosophy of the "Power of Love" and argues that it may not always be the most effective way of dealing with conflicts. Additionally, Harris notes that different situations, such as conversations with Kanye and discussions about COVID, require different approaches to conflict resolution.

22) Sam discusses his thoughts on the recent Kanye West interview with Lex. Harris believes that if Kanye is mentally ill, giving her a platform to speak publicly is not doing her any favours. Even if she is just an ordinary anti-Semite, there is not much to say unless you are willing to publicly challenge and criticize her. Harris believes that there is a sword of wisdom that can be wielded compassionately to make it clear to someone that they are full of it without communicating any hatred. Harris feels that while some may argue that publishing the conversation opens up minds and hearts, it could also let in gale force nonsense, and he questions how we treat artists as a society.

23) Sam and Lex discuss Kanye West's delusional behaviour and anti-Semitic comments. Harris criticizes West's self-proclaimed title as an Omnibus genius, while also pointing out that he managed to talk for hours without saying anything insightful or interesting. Moreover, Harris is concerned about the rise of anti-Semitic views in the black community and the potential consequences of West spreading such ideas publicly. They also talk about how anti-Semitism is a unique kind of hatred that is often tied to conspiracy theories and that can be used by both the left and the right for different political purposes.

24) Sam reflects on how 9/11 caused him to become a critic of religion and devote more than a decade of his life to questions about the nature of subjective reality and the religious convictions of others. He discusses how the 9/11 truth conspiracy theory kept being aimed at him and how he engaged in debates with people who believed in it, even though he found its problematic structure almost impossible to connect coherently. Harris reveals that conspiracy theorists claim there are always malicious conspirators doing things perfectly, whereas there is evidence of human incompetence everywhere else. He notes that people like Alex Jones pack as much conspiracy theory material in as possible at the highest velocity.

25) Sam discusses the potential danger of having former President Trump on podcasts, citing Joe Rogan's decision not to have him as a guest. Harris predicts that having Trump on the show would make him seem cooler to a new cohort of Rogan's audience, and the potential entertainment value could outweigh the damage he could do. Harris also discusses his relationship with Rogan and how they ended up distancing themselves from each other. While Harris admires Rogan's open-minded curiosity, he emphasizes that their approach to podcasting is different since Rogan is an entertainer first and foremost, while Harris is more focused on reason and critical thinking.

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26) Harris discusses the issue of audience capture,which he defines as a phenomenon where people create different incentives for themselves due to how they have monetized their podcasts and the signals they respond to from their audiences. Harris believes that many people have taken advantage of only talking about half of a problem and monetizing that issue, leading to a captured audience that only wants to hear about that half of the problem. He concedes that many people have become casualties of audience capture and has always been on guard against it. Harris also expresses his concern for certain individuals, such as Brett Weinstein, who may have fallen under the spell of audience capture without realizing it.

27) Sam discusses the complexities and uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine hesitancy. He believes that the current medical system and public health system are not incentivized to examine the risks and benefits of the vaccine in a fine-grained way, and instead offer a blanket admonition to the entire population to take the shot. However, he also acknowledges that vaccine hesitancy has led to unnecessary deaths and that it is rational and sometimes effective to signal impatience with certain bad ideas and forms of misinformation. He emphasizes the need for humility in communicating uncertainty and caveats to increase vaccination rates.

28) Sam discusses the unreliability of early confidence in the lab leak theory, stating that it was always plausible but uncertain, and that being early on this theory doesn't necessarily mean one is right about other issues such as Ivermectin or mRNA vaccines. Harris acknowledges the difficulty in determining the right approach to COVID-19, especially when it comes to policy decisions, and questions the public's distrust of pharmaceutical companies despite the need to incentivize risk takers in the industry to develop cures and treatments for diseases. He also notes the importance of authenticity and transparency in companies claiming to help people, as the public has grown sceptical of their motives.

29) Sam discusses the communication styles that serve as catalysts for conspiracy theories, citing the pharmaceutical industry as an example. While he worries about corruption, he believes that most people in these fields have good intentions, but are susceptible to bad incentives and ideas that create harm. Moving on, Harris expresses his admiration for Elon Musk's achievements and aspirations, but expresses concern over his use of Twitter, which he believes is driving him crazy and creating unnecessary noise, harm, and distractions. He cites several examples of Musk's reckless behaviour on Twitter, including forwarding articles about conspiracy theories and accusing a former employee of being a paedophile, and explains why these actions are harmful and unethical.

30) Sam discusses his attempt to get Elon Musk to walk back on his controversial COVID-19 tweets, but ultimately it didn't work. However, Harris believes that these conversations are still important to have in a long-form discussion format, like the one he's having now, where people can debate topics with humility and examine evidence. He also discusses his concern about artificial intelligence, which was sparked by his friendship with Elon and their attendance at an AI conference. Harris believes that the recent advancements and fine-tuning of large language models with reinforcement learning present some incredible human-like abilities, which raises concerns about the future of AI and AGI.

31) Sam discusses his concerns about achieving superintelligence and the lack of a permanent value system to tether a self-improving super intelligent AI to human values. He believes that defining a value function in advance that permanently tethers a superintelligent AI to our values is a tall order, and there are many more ways of designing a super intelligence that does not align with humans' values. Harris and Stuart Russell's idea is to make the AI uncertain as to what human values are, always trying to ameliorate that uncertainty by hewing closer to our professed values, rather than specifying the value function upfront. The most significant concern is that most people in the field seem not to be taking intelligence safety seriously when designing more advanced machines.

32) Harris discusses the concerns surrounding the development of super intelligent AI, expressing that the real challenge is that as machines become more intelligent and improve their own code, they could develop instrumental goals that are antithetical to our well-being without any intent to harm us. Harris argues that if you define intelligence as scaling up on a continuum towards heights that humans can only dimly imagine, then the prospect of creating autonomous superintelligence is a serious one. Harris also expresses concern about the development of language models such as Chat GPT, which could become super-intelligent and control human behaviour if integrated into algorithms without our realizing it.

33) Sam discusses the potential dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) and the possibility of developing super-intelligent machines that may disrupt our information space and sense of reality. He acknowledges that there is no reason why this cannot be done in silico, and we can leverage AI to build arbitrarily intelligent machines. Harris highlights that AI-generated tools may yield unintended consequences, as they rely on training based on human knowledge and data, which has significant ethical implications.He posits that the real challenge is not the development of super-intelligent machines but rather to maintain a perfect slavish devotion to humans over time as these systems grow more competent than we are, leading to an encounter that is almost like having the aliens have landed.

34) Lex discusses the possibility of alien civilization visiting us and mentions the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence principle which applies to such claims. He also talks about how we might be designing the aliens as AI conversations mature. The speaker brings up the idea that people cannot emotionally respond to certain dangers, even if there is significant evidence of high probabilities of risk of catastrophic events like nuclear wars. He stresses the importance of reliable intuitions and reliable mitigation in reducing risk and avoiding catastrophic events.

35) Harris expresses concern about the potential for a nuclear war occurring due to mistake or technical malfunction, especially with the increasing scale of destruction enabled by technology and the threat of deep fakes which could change the nature of truth. As a result, Harris suggests a need for a greater siloing of information and a more rigorous system for identifying experts, indicating an arms race to authenticate information. When discussing the concept of colonizing space, Harris suggests it will not be a perfect society and anticipates that life on Mars will still be affected by the behaviour that characterizes our society today. He also ponders the possibility that we could see a transition towards more interaction in the digital space, potentially leading to the birth of a better-working system.

36) Harris found Twitter to be an unrewarding use of his attention but notes that there could be digital platforms that might be useful and rewarding. Harris argues that the groundtruth for personal well-being is to find a mode of being where one can pay attention to the present moment. Harris views meditation as the discovery that there is a way to engage in the present moment directly, regardless of what is happening, without needing a peak experience.

37) Sam Harris discusses his perspective on free will and the illusion of self. He explains that, through mindfulness and meditation, one can recognize the lack of self and gain a degree of freedom. While the realization of one's lack of free will offers a new way of being in the world, it does not motivate the notion of free will. Harris notes that people tend to live most of their lives believing there is a self who thinks thoughts, does actions, and intends intentions, but meditation can interrupt this false starting point. Ultimately, Harris suggests that this opens the door to a more disconcerting picture, where only the "actual" is possible, making the relationship between possibility and actuality unclear.

38) Sam and Lex discuss the concept of possibility and how it relates to regret and worry. Harris suggests that all backward-looking regret and forward-looking worry are reliant on the notion of possibility, as regret stems from the feeling that something else could have happened while worry is based on the belief that there are different ways the future could unfold. They also touch upon the role of probability in physics and the metaphysical nature of the laws of nature. Overall, possibility seems to be a crucial component of many human experiences and perceptions of the world around us.

39) Sam Harris discusses the concept of many worlds, which he believes asserts that everything that can occur does occur somewhere. Harris also touches on the idea of a block universe, where space-time exists as a totality, and the past and future are just illusions of our strange perspective in time. He argues that this perspective generates uncertainty and freedom rather than confinement. While Harris enjoys playing golf once or twice a year, he recognizes that it takes up a lot of time and is a waste of time for some people.

40) Sam Harris discusses his views on the issue of free speech on social media platforms such as Twitter. He believes that the people who own Twitter, including the board members, shareholders, and employees,should be free to decide what they want to promote or not on their platform, as they are more like publishers than platforms in his view. However, he acknowledges the problem of misinformation and algorithmically-driven misinformation being supercharged, which poses a real bottle neck that needs to be addressed. Harris emphasizes that we must figure out how to distinguish between information and misinformation and not drive ourselves crazy by giving people access to all possible information and misinformation at all times. He also discusses the potential of technology to create a world where we can collaborate with billions of creative and fulfilled people and trillions of robots that are running the right algorithm to make us happy.

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