Welcome to the Making Sense podcast.

This is Sam Harris.

Okay, well, I have been trying to gather my thoughts for this podcast for more than a week

and I've actually been unsure about whether to record it at all, frankly.

I mean, conversation is the only tool we have for making progress.

I firmly believe that, but many of the things we most need to talk about seem impossible

to talk about.

And I think social media is a huge part of the problem.

I've been saying for years now that with social media, we've all been enrolled in a psychological

experiment for which no one gave consent and it's not clear how it will turn out and

it's still not clear how it will turn out, but it's not looking good.

It is fairly disorienting out there.

All information has been weaponized.

All communication has become performative.

And on the most important topics, it now seems to be fury and sanctimony and bad faith

almost all the time.

We appear to be driving ourselves crazy, actually crazy.

Because in capable of coming into contact with reality, unable to distinguish fact from

fiction, and then becoming totally destabilized by our own powers of imagination and confirmation

bias and then lashing out at one another on that basis.

So I'd like to talk about the current moment and the current social unrest and its possible

political implications and other cultural developments and suggest what it might take to pull back

...