#208 — Existential Risk

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

🗓️ 23 June 2020

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Toby Ord about preserving the long term future of humanity. They discuss moral biases with respect to distance in space and time, the psychology of effective altruism, feeling good vs doing good, possible blindspots in consequentialism, natural vs human-caused risk, asteroid impacts, nuclear war, pandemics, the potentially cosmic significance of human survival, the difference between bad things and the absence of good things, population ethics, Derek Parfit, the asymmetry between happiness and suffering, climate change, and other topics.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense podcast.
0:08.0	This is Sam Harris.
0:10.8	Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
0:14.3	feed and will only be hearing partial episodes of the podcast.
0:17.7	If you'd like access to full episodes, you'll need to subscribe at samherris.org.
0:23.3	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with
0:27.5	other subscriber-only content.
0:30.6	And as always, I never want money to be the reason why someone can't listen to the podcast.
0:35.1	So if you can't afford a subscription, there's an option at samherris.org to request a free
0:39.4	account.
0:40.4	And we grant 100% of those requests, no questions asked.
0:45.7	Okay, while the last episode was controversial, episode 207 on racism and police violence,
1:00.4	we have since released an annotated transcript to that episode with links to relevant videos
1:06.2	and articles and data.
1:08.8	I've seen some response, some of it quite effusive in praise, and some of it outraged, which
1:17.4	of course I expected.
1:19.7	Many people also contacted me privately to convey their gratitude and full support all
1:25.4	the while making it clear that they can't take such a position publicly.
1:30.0	And this is definitely a sign of the times that concerns me.
1:33.7	I'm talking about people who in any sane society should be able to have the courage of their
1:40.3	convictions.
1:42.4	And some people thought it ironic, even hypocritical for me to trump at the value of conversation
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Waking Up with Sam Harris, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Waking Up with Sam Harris and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.