#299 — Steps in the Right Direction
Making Sense with Sam Harris
Waking Up with Sam Harris
4.6 • 29.7K Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2022
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sam Harris speaks with Russ Roberts about decision-making and the nature of moral progress. They discuss the shortcomings of economics as a science, the power of books, the difference between "wild" and "tame" problems, Darwin's embarrassing thoughts about the value of marriage, the utility of decision of analysis, incommensurate goods, free riding, counterfactuals, how the decisions we make change us, the difficulty of predicting future experience, changing moral norms, Effective Altruism, free speech, whether we are making moral progress, social media, truth vs comfort, problems with consequentialism, rule-based consequentialism, free will, meditation, and other topics.
If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That's why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life's most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. |
| 0:09.1 | This is Sam Harris. |
| 0:11.3 | Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber |
| 0:14.8 | feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. |
| 0:18.6 | In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe |
| 0:22.5 | at samharis.org. |
| 0:24.5 | There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with |
| 0:28.3 | other subscriber-only content. |
| 0:30.7 | We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support |
| 0:34.6 | of our subscribers. |
| 0:36.0 | So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. |
| 0:46.3 | Today I'm speaking with Russ Roberts. |
| 0:48.9 | Russ is the president of Shalem College in Jerusalem and a research fellow at the Hoover |
| 0:54.3 | Institution at Stanford. He also hosts the award-winning weekly podcast, Econ Talk, which |
| 1:00.8 | I highly recommend. |
| 1:03.1 | And he's the author of five books, including How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, and |
| 1:08.4 | most recently, Wild Problems, a guide to the decisions that define us. |
| 1:14.4 | And that is the topic of today's conversation. |
| 1:18.1 | We discuss the shortcomings of economics as a science, the power of books, the difference |
| 1:24.7 | between wild and tame problems. |
| 1:28.1 | Darwin's embarrassing attempt to rationally decide whether to get married, the utility |
| 1:34.6 | of techniques like decision analysis, income, incident, goods, free riding, counterfactuals, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
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.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.