Welcome to the After-On Podcast. I'm Rob Reed, and I'm Tom Merritt. And this is a special

episode designed around the book, After-On. Each of these special episodes focuses on one

aspect of the science, tech, and social issues explored in the novel. Now, you don't have

to read After-On in order to learn from or enjoy these podcasts. That's because we

wait until the very end to discuss the book in detail and to really tie it to this week's

topic. That last section will make perfect sense if you're reading the novel, but if you're

not reading it, just tune out at that point. You can always come back if you decide to

read it later. And we'll warn you before we get to that part. But first, we have a lot

of things to talk about which should be interesting to everybody. Specifically, terrorism

and particularly suicidal acts, not a light topic by any stretch, but one that is important

to understand. And After-On, you describe some very chilling philosophies that could

drive terrorism, and you have Sam Harrison to talk about the reality behind what makes

terrorism happen. Yes, and Settelon, because Sam has a tradition of conducting sometimes

very long interviews on his own podcast, which sometimes runs over three hours. And he

was really generous with his time with us. And so we will not buck the trend of long interviews.

And it's interesting because in this interview, the first half of the interview will really

go into great depth about how Sam became the public intellectual he is. He is definitely

at this point one of the most visible commentators on a number of topics. He is not fond of

Trump, and he is often stating that in very clear and unequivocal terms. He is not fond

of political correctness. And he is very vehement about that, both in our interview and generally

in the public sphere. And he thinks a great deal about terrorism and the risks that it

presents. So we are going to spend a good chunk of time talking about Sam's path to becoming

...