#117 — Networks, Power, and Chaos

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2018

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Harris speaks with Niall Ferguson about his new book "The Square and the Tower." They discuss his career as a writer, networks and hierarchies, how history gets written, the similarity between the 16th century and the 21st, the role of social media in the 2016 Presidential election, the influence of advertising on the public sphere, Trump, the Russian investigation, Islamic extremism, counterfactuals, what would have happened if Clinton had won the presidency, immigration in Europe, conspiracy theories, capitalism, globalization, communism, wealth inequality, universal basic income, Henry Kissinger, the prospect of a US war with China, cyberwar, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today I am speaking with Neil Ferguson. Neil is a financial historian, the author of
0:22.6	many books, also a journalist, he's a professor, he is now affiliated with the Hoover Institution
0:29.0	Stanford University, he is the lucky husband of Ion Hersiali, one of my friends and heroes,
0:36.0	also a former podcast guest, and he is most recently the author of the Square and the Tower,
0:42.0	networks and power from the Freemasons to Facebook. In this conversation we talk about mostly
0:48.4	that book, we talk about Trump and other matters and those of you who have hated me on
0:54.1	the topic of Trump may like that part of the conversation. Neil is really one of the
0:59.7	first people to say anything that has given me pause on the topic of Trump and what he
1:07.6	says is fairly simple, it makes Trump look no better, it doesn't take the onus off
1:14.2	of the people who have supported him, but I did find it worth thinking about. And it has
1:20.5	to some degree changed my sense of how bad an outcome the election was, all things considered.
1:29.4	So once you appreciate that when it happens in the conversation, Neil, as most of you
1:34.5	know, is a man of strong opinions and a wealth of information and now I bring him to you.
1:41.8	Please enjoy Neil Ferguson.
1:44.3	I am here with Neil Ferguson. Neil, thanks for coming on the podcast.
1:51.0	It's a pleasure, Sam. This has been a long time coming. You are one of my most requested
1:56.4	guests and you are also a man who's had the good sense to marry one of my favorite women
2:01.9	on earth, Ion, her, C.I. Lee, so well done on both counts.
2:06.9	That is the most interesting thing about me and she is more interesting than me. So your
2:12.5	listeners will just have to make do with second best on this occasion.
2:15.8	Yeah, well, it's a good problem to have. It sure is.
2:19.5	So before we get into your new book, which is fascinating, give me a picture of how you
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