u/Brunodosca

Neuroscientist, philosopher, and Making Sense podcast host Sam Harris joins Preet Bharara to examine why good-faith political debate has become so difficult, President Trump’s political durability, the influence of the DSA, and whether anyone can inherit the MAGA movement after Trump.

The conversation also turns to law and democratic institutions: demands to prosecute political opponents, the difference between accountability and retribution, the limits of unwritten norms, and what it would take to prevent another president from exploiting the same weaknesses.

Link to YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEiN_Mi5Lk4

A recent paper looks more closely at suspiciously high research estimates of conspiracy endorsement. They find that many respondents are insincere when they say they believe this or that conspiracy.

Link to the British Psychological Society magazine article explaining the paper: https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/do-people-really-believe-conspiracy-theories-they-say-they-do

Link to the paper: https://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article/12/1/159253/217850/Do-People-Sincerely-Believe-Conspiracy-Theories

Sam Harris speaks with Kathryn Paige Harden about behavioral genetics, moral luck, and the problem of blame. They discuss the controversy over Charles Murray and Ezra Klein, why behavioral genetics remains taboo, the meaning of heritability, nature and nurture as feedback loops, embryo selection and IVF, and other topics.

I have noticed (correct me with facts if you think it's a false perception) that Sam Harris displays an asymmetry in his intellectual charity, frequently extending nuance and "steel-manning" to figures on the right while applying a literal, ungenerous lens to the left, fixating on the most extreme, bad-faith actors, treating fringe cultural excesses as representative.

In the latest episode (#482: More From Sam), while discussing the three congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani around the 20-minute mark, Sam claims that "these are DSA lunatics, total lunatics" who are guilty of "declining to criticize Hamas" and of "saying there should be no police officers or prisons [...] ever, anywhere." I decided to fact-check this claim. Below are the three candidates alongside the publicly available information regarding these accusations:

Brad Lander (NY-10):

Has he declined to criticize Hamas? No. Lander has never declined to criticize Hamas.

Has he ever condemned Hamas? Yes, consistently. Lander, who is Jewish, severed his ties with the DSA in late 2023 specifically because he was disappointed by the organization’s failure to immediately and unequivocally condemn the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

Has he ever said there should not be police anywhere ever? No. Lander has advocated heavily for systemic police reform and budget cuts, but he has not called for the complete elimination of police.

Claire Valdez (NY-7):

Has she declined to criticize Hamas? No.

Has she ever condemned Hamas? Not directly. She has only said platitudes regarding being against the loss of civilian life, in contrast with her very clear, direct, and blunt condemnation of what she claims is Israel's "genocide".

Has she ever said there should not be police anywhere ever? No. Like Lander, Valdez supports the "Defund the Police" movement, but there is no public record of her stating that police departments should completely cease to exist everywhere.

Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY-13):

Has she declined to criticize Hamas? Yes, initially. During an endorsement meeting with the Broadway Democrats she was asked directly to condemn Hamas and the October 7 attacks. The club formally documented that she "point-blank refused" and instead turned the answer into an objection regarding the history of the region.

Has she ever condemned Hamas? Yes, later. Facing heavy public scrutiny, she explicitly adjusted her stance, stating: "While, yes, I do condemn Hamas, the problem is that our country, the thing that we can control, is where our money and our tax dollars are going."

Has she ever said there should not be police anywhere ever? Yes. Investigations into her deleted social media history revealed that she explicitly supported total police abolition. A CNN investigation found that her old Twitter account contained thousands of posts where she explicitly advocated for "abolishing police, prisons, and borders".

Therefore, I would argue that Sam made a gross misrepresentation of the first one, while the last two of the three appear to be "lunatics", and even then, if we try being charitable, of a slightly lesser caliber than Sam implied.

So, what do you think? Is this merely an unrepresentative example, or does Sam consistently deliver his intellectual charity in an asymmetric manner?

Edit: I have updated the Claire Valdez answer regarding condemnation of Hamas, since her general platitudes don't seem enough to qualify as condemnation given how clear she is when condemning Israel.

Sam Harris on how to think clearly when the world is designed to keep you outraged.

In this Part 1 (link below) of this two-part Commune Podcast conversation, Jeff Krasno sits down with Sam Harris to dissect the systems driving political tribalism, the collapse of free speech, and the psychological cost of living inside the attention economy.

What they cover:

• Why Sam quit Twitter after 12 years — and what finally broke him
• How the attention economy fuels hyper-partisanship and authoritarianism
• The moral panic around race and how it radicalized the political center
• Immigration policy, deportation, and the abandonment of Afghan allies
• Free speech, Viktor Orbán's defeat, and the future of liberal democracy

Link to the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV-9qqgKRL8

Former Making Sense guest Destiny makes a video about Sam's Mamdani comment, Trump's "good people on both sides" controversy, and other subjects.

The relevant part starts around t=9min

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj98BXICrxc