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Making Sense with Sam Harris

#138 — The Edge of Humanity

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

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

4.629.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about his new book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century.” They discuss the importance of meditation for his intellectual life, the primacy of stories, the need to revise our fundamental assumptions about human civilization, the threats to liberal democracy, a world without work, universal basic income, the virtues of nationalism, the implications of AI and automation, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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

0:12.1

hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing

0:16.2

the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense

0:20.7

Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharis.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed

0:26.1

to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads

0:31.2

on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.

0:35.8

So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.

0:46.8

Today I am speaking with Yavall Noah Harari. Yavall has a PhD in history from the University of

0:52.8

Oxford, and he lectures at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he specializes in world history.

1:00.5

His books have been translated into over 50 languages, and these books are sapiens,

1:05.7

a brief history of humankind, homodeos, a brief history of tomorrow, and his new book, which we

1:13.2

discuss today, is 21 lessons for the 21st century. Yavall is rather like me in that he spends a

1:21.7

lot of time worrying out loud. He's also a long-term meditator. I don't know if there's a connection

1:27.6

there. There was so much to talk about. There is much more in the new book than we touched,

1:34.5

but we touched a lot. We actually started talking about the importance of meditation for his

1:40.0

intellectual life. We talk about the primacy of stories. The need to revise our fundamental

1:46.5

assumptions about human civilization and how it works. The current threats to liberal democracy,

1:53.6

what a world without work might look like. Universal basic income, the virtues of nationalism.

2:00.9

Yavall has some surprising views on that. The implications of AI and automation, and several other

2:08.3

topics, so without further delay, I bring you Yavall Noah Harari.

2:38.8

Thank you. Thank you to River Squomo. That's amazing.

2:47.8

So you've heard this from me before if you've been to an event or listened to events on a podcast,

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