Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

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Today I'm speaking with the writer and journalist AJ Jacobs. AJ is the author of

several New York Times bestsellers. The Know It All, the Year of Living Biblically,

the Guinea Pig Diaries, and most recently it's all relative. He's the editor at large of

S. Quire magazine, also contributor to NPR, and he's written for The New York Times,

The Washington Post, and other journals. And we talk about many of the topics he's touched

over his career. We talk about his full immersion approach to journalism, the way he

performs elaborate experiments on himself. We talk about religion, gossip, polyamory,

health advice, how to think about once past and future selves, the ethics of honesty and what's

been called radical honesty. His recent adventure is in human genealogy, in his new book,

its connection to tribalism, and many other topics. And now without further delay, I bring you

AJ Jacobs. I am here with AJ Jacobs. AJ, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Thanks for having me, Sam. So you are really a unique sort of writer. I mean, I'm sure there are

other people who take a similar approach, but I can't name them off the top of my head. You go

into each book and to some of your articles, more or less determined to perform a very elaborate

and sometimes painful psychological experiment on yourself. And presumably everyone you care about,

...