Making Sense with Sam Harris - #279 — The Rules of the Stage

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Sam Harris and Ricky Gervais discuss the infamous Oscar slap. We’re excited to announce the launch of the Absolutely Mental app for iOS users. All three seasons of Absolutely Mental are available for purchase on the app. Subscribers to the Making Sense podcast will hear the episode in its entirety in their subscriber feed. If you’d like to hear this entire episode for free, you can access it by downloading the Absolutely Mental app. This bonus episode is listed in Season 3. Note: If you’ve previously purchased any Absolutely Mental content on the website, you will be able to access it in the app. Please check the FAQ for more info. 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.

Thank you. of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our control. We've created an app for the Absolutely Mental podcast, which is currently available on iOS only, and it's now in the App Store, except that got delayed because, strangely, the powers that be at Apple thought that we were impersonating Sam Harris and Ricky Gervais and stealing the intellectual property of those esteemed gentlemen. So it took some time to

actually get the app situated, and that's why it took so long to release this conversation, wherein I get Ricky's reaction to the infamous Oscar slap. Obviously, we're a little late to the party here, but I think the conversation has aged well. And it was great to get Ricky's take on all this. He was actually trending on Twitter immediately after the event itself. He seemed to be the third person on earth people most wanted to hear from at that moment, and I don't believe he has said anything at length since. So, for better or worse, here's our conversation about

Will Smith, Chris Rock, and all things related to the ethics and psychological weirdness of that moment. As always, it's great to talk to Ricky. If you want more of us, you can find us at absolutelymental.com, where we have now three seasons of that podcast. Also, if you're on iOS, you can download the Absolutely Mental app, where this conversation can be heard in its entirety for free. And also, if you're a subscriber to Making Sense, you will now hear the full conversation. Enjoy. Hey, how you doing? Uh, oh well i mean if you really want to know it it it'd take a while give me the first pass i'll give you the minor one the minor one on my side which i think we've talked about but this will show you what a a hard-headed fool you're collaborating with i think i've discovered for the hundredth time that red wine is not good for me and this is the

way i do science i perform this experiment 99 times and doubt it yeah i can't so i'm dealing with that i don't know what it is but it's just you know i understand what alcohol does to me i understand how to avoid a hangover but red wine gives me a headache reliably that's how i drink now i drink as much as i can but avoiding the hangover i i know i know my limit i tried to start drinking less in the lockdown so i thought i just have two glasses of wine a night right but all that happened was the glasses got bigger yeah it was like it's like some sort of game yeah you get you have to talk to the bartender yeah your right hand who's the bartender needs to needs to be in on the secret i never go out i i think i go out about once every

two months now i didn't go out at all in lockdown obviously so that was some yeah drinking it drinking at home watching netflix but yeah i it's also i'm older now it's like you can't do the things like even tennis now i play tennis every week and i can't walk for 24 hours afterwards right i wake up and it feels like i've been in a car crash. Like I do, I'm doing warmups gigs and you don't notice it. Like if I do two in a row again, the second, it's like, what have I done? It's the adrenaline and that you don't notice at the time.

It's just like everything, everything has a bigger effect. Now I've got like, I've got shin splints in my one shin that I've got, just got to stop running. But I don't stop doing it. That's the thing, I think. I don't stop doing what's bad for me because why should I?

Just because I can't walk the next day, there's no reason not to play tennis the day before. Yeah, so just getting worse and worse, really, isn't it? Yeah, well, you're five years ahead of me, I think, but the view from here is already bad. I can't wait. I can't wait until you're like this. Yeah.

Also, you get heavier as well. You just creep up. I just stopped weighing myself because it's like just every month you just put on a pound. Well, I don't know. It's metabolism. You work out less because it aches it's all muscle you're putting on a pound of muscle every month yeah well that's what right i had the idea right that was my latest way to

beat the system i i read that you know um muscle weighs more than fat but you burn more calories at rest yeah so i thought i'd just work out so i just got fat and muscly so at least you're strong if you're gonna be fat you might as well be strong yeah yeah that's another thing you're not as strong you ache more you you know your your tendons are not as good you do like if i do squats now i think i'm not going to be able to get up after this it's like you you lose your nerve as well everything just i don't know why it happens it just does though you just feel you just feel weaker and it is i'd say it's in the last two years i thought of 58 i don't like to hear that. Yeah, I know. But 60 is like, no, that's it.

That's it. I do have the solution for you, the near-term solution. You can do your squats as long as you're just picking up cases of wine. Yeah, exactly. I do count things as exercise. Now, if I have to run up and down the stairs, I think that's... You've done it for the day, yeah. Yeah. you've done it for the day yeah yeah but i think you've got i think you've got a you know a certain amount of you know heartbeats and breaths and steps in you and so as you do more exercise i

think it's three billion wear out i think it is i forget i think the number is three billion heartbeats something like that yeah really well that's good because my resting heart rate is really low. It's about 58 to 60. So if you work out, it goes up. Your clock's ticking down much, much faster. So, you know, anyway. Yeah. So yeah, I'm all right. Thanks for asking. Okay. So we have something to talk about and I think we're both a little sheepish about talking about it. There's a bandwagon that we don't want to jump on. But in reality, I think you of all people can be forgiven for talking about this at any point, and the comments will age well. Because honestly, from the looks of my Twitter feed, you were virtually the third person on earth people were thinking about when this episode happened.

So I'm referring to the famous Oscar slap delivered by Will Smith to Chris Rock. And now we're talking five days, six days later. Yeah. So let's just take a look i woke up that monday morning 7 30 and i had the odd email and message and dm from uh friends and colleagues in america going you know things like what the fuck i feel so sorry for chris what would you have done that's disgusting i went what i don't know i didn't know what they were. So I put it together and I thought, oh, Chris Rock. Oh, Chris Rock, what's that then? Will Smith, Oscars, right.

So I Googled it and immediately I watched the clip. Yeah. Can you recapture your immediate reaction? I was angry. I thought no one should hit someone for you know hearing something they don't like and particularly you know this wasn't this wasn't a bar this wasn't a hockey field you know it it was it was two men in tuxedos it was strange and it was it was shocking and uh obviously initially it looked it looked like the world agreed with me that this

shouldn't have happened he shouldn't have done it and i and i stand by that and that's my that's my first and last assessment of it he shouldn't have done it you you know but i also saw there were people saying well chris rock deserved it you know i think well what what do you mean he deserved it and you know they had lots of they had lots of reasons that he deserved it. And I think, well, what? What do you mean he deserved it? And they had lots of reasons that he deserved it. The joke was offensive. He shouldn't say that about his wife. All the, not valid reasons in my book, but I could see that it wasn't a slam dunk.

There were some people that thought that, you know, Will Smith was in the right and uh i never did and i still don't even though i think uh i i'm i feel a bit sorry for him to some extent because we don't know what he's going through but we'll get to that but i i yeah i was i was sort of outraged but i didn't want to join in i didn't i didn't want to add my voice everyone was there but then i then i saw i was trending yeah yeah it was suddenly all about me and and the the everyone was saying you know what what would ricky gervais have done or oh my god that's nothing to what ricky gervais said or yeah oh my god that was the most common take yeah exactly

and i i resisted it and and we spoke and i didn't really want to you know do anything and i just thought you know it's not it's not my thing and uh i actually had a a new material night the next night and you when something happens that's so big you have to address it straight away so they stop thinking about it so they stop thinking about is he going to mention it so i went out there and i went i haven't got any will smith material and they laughed that big laugh of recognition he said something right and uh and i said i said it was ridiculous i trended i was the number one trend nothing to do with me i wasn't even there and i said um people saying oh what would have happened if ricky gervais had been doing it i said well nothing would have happened because i wouldn't have made a joke about his

wife's hair i'd have made a joke about a boyfriend and that was the big laugh and that was the end of it right and i got on with it it was great but there was someone in from the press on a new material night that they tweeted that. And then I trended again. Right. I trended again with that quote. So that's why, that's why I,

people don't realize this, but I desperately tried to keep my mouth shut when it's not to do with me, but you get sort of, you get drawn in. And suddenly now I've got, I've got to mention it. But yeah, I was worried on principle. I thought it was bad on principle.

I thought Chris Rock didn't deserve it, and no one does. And certainly not with that joke, because I didn't find the joke. I don't even know how anyone could find that offensive. You know, one people were saying it's about a medical condition. Well, a medical condition was nothing to do with the joke. The joke was her appearance. And I don't think Chris Rock even knew she suffers from alopecia or, you know, any medical condition. I think he, you know, it's all.

Well, there's so many. Let's just linger on. Let's take this piece by piece because there's so many layers to this so just that point about the nature of the joke yes you know whether he knew or not whether he knew or not the source of her baldness that's probably relevant to his intentions but even if he knew it's not a hard-hitting joke because of the basic reality of her appearance which is one she's a beautiful woman who happens to look beautiful bald you know whatever she thinks and the comparison to demi more in gi jane was not an unflattering one because you know famously she looked great bald

too and she was super fit and she's this awesome first woman navy seal and right so it's like it's not it's not a comparison that is denigrating her no i didn't think it was an insult i didn't think he was going for it i didn't think he was trying to embarrass her there was nothing nasty about it there's nothing unflattering about it it was it was a really tame you know you could you could say that to a kid at a barbecue oh you look like g like G.I. Jane. You know, there was no, there was no, nothing to embarrass her. You know, and then people were bringing up, you know, like history or he's mentioned her before. Again, which I think is irrelevant unless it's, you know, because I didn't know that. I didn't know he'd mentioned her before or that they were friends. I don't know any of that.

mentioned her before or that they were friends i don't know any of that true if you look at it if you look at the cut in the cold light of day that joke that there was there was no need for outrage and will smith laughed yeah he laughed that was a polite laugh yeah yeah yeah i get it oh yeah i look like yeah funny yeah whatever there was no you know and then she rolled her eyes and he obviously thought he had to do something. And, you know, I'm obviously I'm not a psychologist or a body language expert, but it seemed to me like he'd he started strolling up there and he didn't know what he was going to do. I think he regretted it almost immediately thinking, oh, I've got to do something now. And Chris Rock thinking, what's he going to do you know you know he could have run away and made a joke or begged you know had a laugh but because he did nothing and stood there now will smith's got oh no i've got to do something right and i think if you look at it will smith doesn't want to hit him he doesn't

want to hit him hard he sort of leans back so he nearly misses and just touches his chin. Well, that's what I initially found quite confusing because, and that's why, and the thing that most interests me here is to kind of put ourselves in the room because the room was powerfully confused. I mean, the room was an alternate universe. I mean, the behavior of the people in the room is genuinely startling to me. So I want to talk about what people thought they saw and how they processed all that. But just watching on TV or on the computer, I saw it looked like he barely made contact given Chris Rock's reaction. I mean, if he had slapped him with any force, given the way

Chris was standing, he would have had to have taken a major step back or fallen back. I mean, standing he would have he would have had to have taken a major step back or fallen back or i mean a slap delivered delivered hard could have just knocked him flat right and well that's the other thing about it whether whatever the the slap was again my initial thought was this was a six foot three man hitting a guy i think he weighs probably about 140 pounds chris rock yeah he's yeah he's slight he's a tiny guy that's a bad look optically yeah yeah it didn't it it didn't look fair it looked like bullying whatever you think jokes are and what words are they're not bullying compared to you know physical fire that that really started annoying me when people started saying, no, but words are actual violence. No, they're not. No, they're not. No, they're not. Stop saying that.

Given how tenuous the slap was, I think people in the room could be forgiven up until that moment for thinking, oh, this must be a bit. They've worked out. I thought it was. Yeah. I knew, although I'd seen the controversy before I saw the thing, and I still had to watch it a few times thinking is it a bit and then chris rock said will smith just slap the shit out of me i thought this isn't a bit yeah but even there i could the only place it became crystal clear i

would say to the people in the room that it wasn't a bit was when he got back to his seat and yelled yeah keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth and i even the second like it wasn't it took the second time for the reality to dawn i think yeah that looked like a man who was adrenalized that looked like a man who's enjoying being a warrior he enjoyed the violence because he felt that he'd it sort of won and he was angry and he was frustrated and he i think he knew he shouldn't have done it and i i think that what made me do that why did i do that what have i done well that that i i would question that because his behavior for the rest of the night did not seem like somebody who was who whose conscience was settling especially hard no because he'd got away with it he yeah oh yeah but he thought he'd got away with it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, but he thought he'd got away with it. Don't forget, a few minutes later, he just won Oscar. It was, without that slap, this was the greatest night of his life.

This was the greatest night of his career. He couldn't believe it. So all that other stuff, it was still, without the slap, this was amazing, of course. And they had all that adrenaline, and he's thinking, oh, it's okay, I've won an Oscar. It's okay. It's like when a kid thinks, oh, I didn't get caught.

They didn't see me. They didn't. I've got away with the sweets. They didn't see me. It was like that sort of feeling. He must have thought, and he was dancing and is, you know, I think he thought he'd done well. I think he thought he was chivalrous.

I think he thought he'd done well. I think he thought he was chivalrous. I think he thinks his wife and family were proud of him. So it's like he got some sort of affirmation and reward. You slap a man on stage, that's never happened before. I've never seen anything like it. As I say, it happens in bars around the world every night, and it happens in sport, and it happens in the playground. But it doesn't happen on the greatest entertainment night, arguably, in the world, in tuxedos.

It was weird. And in particular, let's maybe hit this point now, because at minimum we need to get it out of the way. The norm that was violated here was crystal clear. I mean, the role of a comedian in that context is understood, right? And you have occupied this role, that precise role, many, many times at award shows with much more of a lacerating effect on the people in the audience. And you are the court jester who's given full license to roast the people in the audience yeah but also more than that chris rock isn't just a presenter or an actor going up there and saying stuff he's a comedian right and this is hard to explain but

when you're on stage that's your home right? That is not, that's a psychological and a physical power. If someone gets on the seat and gets on your stage, that's a massive thing. That's a massive effect. That's like someone's just let himself into your house. And he must have thought, oh my God, but I can't act like I do when I'm on stage. So I haven't got the power.

And there's no doubt that in that room, Will Smith had the power and he'd stepped on on stage. So I haven't got the power. And there's no doubt that in that room, Will Smith had the power and he'd stepped on the stage. He was alpha. He was not only a bigger man, but he'd broken down all those barriers. He'd broken down all those, you know, unwritten laws.

He should not have stepped on that stage without permission. So Chris Rock, his world was chatty didn't know i mean he did amazing yeah i can't believe i mean he fluffed his line a little bit he didn't know what was going on and i think that i saw a thing where he said that he was i think he was bullied and you know he was in therapy for it so this wasn't this wasn't good for him to go through that you know that i think it it really i mean i can't imagine it maybe we'll come back to that i mean i think he handled himself totally impeccably despite me him getting flustered is totally understandable and he was barely

flustered given the situation but and this is what i do want to get to i think he was totally betrayed by the academy and the room really i mean it was just amazing to me that that just the way the rest of the event unfolded what should have happened i agree but but don't forget those people were a bit in shock and they wanted to go to go back to normal right it's like they were in slight denial and i i think they had some sort of deferred responsibility like that happened we don't know what to do oh this is normal again will smith's winning an award and he's crying it's all normal everyone there's nothing to see here it's okay everyone the world is not out of joint yeah yeah i know yeah so you know and and i don't know what happened i'd

heard i've heard uh two opposing reports that the first was they asked him to leave and then people said that isn't true they didn't ask him to leave in fact i i heard the producer i said asked him to stay although i i heard a quote from the producer saying that that slat he said he poured concrete on the room and i think that's a lovely way of putting it because they must have been just it must have been weird it must have been so strange because you know again let's get it in context it got it he didn't punch him he didn't kick him he didn't stab him he didn't head butt him he didn't do anything that would be traditionally you know a terrible assault of violence but i'll tell you getting a slap in front of everyone from a bigger man it it is violence let me just linger on that point for a

second because it does matter what he attempted to do i mean if, because, yes, a slap of any degree is violence and it's designed to obviously assert your power over someone and humiliate them and it is bullying. All the ugliness is contained even in the mere grazing gesture there. But if he tried to slap him hard and he just failed because Chris moved to the the degree he did it could have been a very different outcome because you can knock someone senseless with a hard yeah and i don't and i genuinely think that he didn't want to hurt him i don't think he even wanted to slap him i think he regretted it walking up there but he wanted to look like he wanted to look like, he wanted to look like John Wayne. Right. You know, he wanted to, you know, no one, no one insults my woman. I can be a hero here.

And, you know, I think he felt some sort of weird pressure to do it. And he was in two minds. And I don't think he is that guy. I don't think, I don't think he's a violent person who wants to, you know, I think it was like he wanted to be like that for a minute to impress someone. And, and it just,

I think it must've felt really weird for him, but about the slap, right. I was talking to a security guard once and I don't know if it's true for everyone, but he said, Oh, you know,

you know, if it goes to it, a slap is really good because it shocks them. And he said, it looks good in court. Right. You don't break your hand as one often does punching someone in the head. And he said, most people don't press charges because they're embarrassed to say I was slapped by a man. Oh, wow. So there is a sort of this machismo using that embarrassment and that dominance. But the reality is, if you slap them on the ear, you break their eardrum with good contact

and you will completely lay them out, right? Oh, of course, you can knock someone out. can really hurt someone you can break their jaw you can do anything but there is absolutely no way he wanted to do that and he showed it that slap wouldn't have hurt but that's irrelevant he wanted it to look like a slap he wanted to shut up chris rock he wanted to look like a hero he wanted it to look like he had dominated and shut someone up. And he wanted it to be justified. And to some people, it was. And some people, it still is.

Yeah, that's the amazing thing. I've heard so many conspiracy theories that, you know, that they won't back down. They think that. But now it's been going on a week. And, I mean, I don't know how, you know, much longer it'll do or what his punishment is or will be. Right. Well, so let's just nail down the objective fact that many people gave voice to. And I think Kathy Griffin might have put it in a tweet that was most visible. But she said something like, you know, oh, great.

Now every comedian has to wonder whether someone wants to emulate will smith and jump up on stage it's like our job just got more dangerous yeah and i do think that is whatever the extenuating circumstances whatever you think about will smith and whatever the cause of this whether or the nature of chris rock joke, that norm violation is just bad, right? Yeah, if there isn't some sort of, you know, comeuppance or agreed distaste, then it would be dangerous. And it's more dangerous because even though it would be very rare, if a man with everything to lose is willing to do it,'s people with nothing to do exactly willing to do you know people want to get famous for anything people do anything before so for this week

will smith is the most famous man in the world this week he has been the most famous man in the world and some people will go well i can do that that's exactly right yeah that's exactly right an analogous situation which is different but it reveals the same problem here. I don't know if you've seen it. I think this has happened internationally. But there was this group of people that were hitting famous people they didn't like with pies. Like just fake pie, like shaving cream in a pie dish. Yeah, they did it here with milk.

They threw milk over. Oh, that shaving cream in a pie dish. Yeah, they did it here with milk. They threw milk over. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. So that, I think we may have even spoken about this at one point, but people who don't really think it through think that behavior is totally innocuous. It's just a social protest. You're just kind of embarrassing the person.

It's just shaving cream or milk. What's the problem? Yeah. But the real problem is it's a mock assassination and you're you're showing the the real lunatics of the world just how easy it is to go up and hit bill gates or boris johnson or somebody in the face even when they have security around them right so it's a bad meme to be putting out there and it makes the lives of famous controversial people just yeah more dangerous i hadn't even thought

of the the yeah the the extreme version of that but even without that i think it's still an affront oh yeah i think that is like a slap you know it it's done it's done something to you it's embarrassing you've you've you've been covered in something you might have ruined your clothes you're stuck in it it really is inconvenience whether you whether they've covered in something you might have ruined your clothes you're stuck in it it really is inconvenience whether you whether they've got a loophole around violence you know and um uh one of our famous politicians years ago john prescott he was a a northern sort of working class guy in the labor right and he was walking along and someone egged him threw an egg at him and he just turned around and punched him straight in the face and and i like that because because just because the leg the egg leaves your hand and it gets him in the eye doesn't mean it's not it's not

an extension of your fist yeah no exactly and i just like i talked about this i think with you before that that dumb practical joke in school where they'd put a drawing pin, a tack, on your chair, and if you sat on it, they'd laugh because you did it. I go, no, no, that doesn't count. I did... No, no, no. You haven't got... You haven't solved yourself a responsibility

because I sat on a sharp object that you put there for me to sit on. That's still your fault so uh you know i i think you can you can play games all you like and try and get around you know it's not as bad as a punch or whatever but you can't do that you can't you can't do that you know if that was you know paint on someone's house they'd be done for you know criminal damage vandalism okay so let's jigger some of the um variables here if will smith had not been will smith if he had been far less famous or just some anonymous creature who in a tuxedo yeah the outcome would have been obviously different, right?

I mean, well, I assume he wouldn't have made it to the stage if he was just, if he was a seat filler, right. Who looked like he was walking on stage and people looking at their notes going, what's this?

This isn't in the script. And, and Bistrot went, Oh, I don't, I don't think he'd have made it. Well, what one would hope,

I'm not so sure, but one would hope, but given that it was will smith and given that he's that famous and people have so many positive associations with him that's what made it so difficult to process right the moment you dial down his fame sufficiently then it's just a straight up illegal act in plain view of millions of people and this is completely anathema yeah you know the guy is immediately arrested uh and has legal problems yeah but that's a very good point as well because i think that's what allowed him to do it as well because because it was mill smith i bet

even producers thought this is going to be funny. Right. He's going to tease him. Or they've done a bit. They've worked out in the car park. We're not in on this. Or what's he going to do? It's all right.

It's Will Smith. Yeah. He's not going to. It's Will Smith. What could go wrong? I know. Exactly. You know.

And then he slaps him and walks away. And they're going, ah, okay, he did do something. It's too late. He's gone back to his chair. Okay, Chris Rock's covering, good. Ah, now he's swearing. Oh, he's swearing again. Now it's, now it's.

So, I mean, I let them off. I let all the organisers off for not acting quickly enough up to that point. Then I think, then we don't know. Then what happens? But even there. He wins an award. He wins an Oscar. Well, OK, so the place where it goes completely off the rails for me, just tonally and just existentially is him winning the award the

contents and spin of his speech right i didn't watch it because i i didn't want to watch it i because i i didn't i i didn't like the fact that he was winning an award and he was getting a standing ovation so i didn't watch it i'm afraid i i saw him crying i saw a clip of it and so what what did he say how long was it was it like a it's uh i think it's five or six minutes god well i mean the first thing i want to say is that i think it's appropriate to view i mean again i don't i don't know all the details of Will Smith's life and, you know, what has come before this. I mean, I just heard rumors of how complicated his relationship is with his wife and how colorful that has all been. But I think when you look at how much he had to lose, right, and what he decided to do in front of tens of millions of people i think it's appropriate to

view that whole episode as a kind of mental health crisis right like that well i i i when i saw this i saw that i saw the clip i saw of him crying and making it about the guy he played was the was the william sister's dad right i haven't seen the film either yeah but didn't he make it about sort of protecting family yeah try and make what he just did that's all i saw and he made it all about about love that he wants to be like a vessel of love and he's a river to his people and it was so the text of it he was obviously winging it in the moment because he was connecting it to what had just happened but the broad strokes was that he apologized to everyone on earth apart from chris rock and he cast it all in terms of he's a protector of women and you know he's a river to his people and it was

the most self-aggrandizing delusional well he couldn't apologize because that would ruin it because then he'd have to say he did something wrong. But it was just you would think he was Gandhi. You know, he was Gandhi who just had to be tough Gandhi that one time. Right. That's like a superhero says, sorry, you had to see that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like he wasn't apologizing for the violence.

He was going. Yeah. It's all in a day's work. I'm used to it. That might be a shock to you, but not to me. And he just takes off. He just takes off and flies away. Yeah.

No, I know it was all about. But it did, again, it did look of a piece with a kind of mental health crisis. You know, I don't want to. I guess that could be that's totally exculpatory on some level, just to say he's, the guy's having a breakdown, cut him some slack. But I did sort of view it that way because the question is, do you locate the problem purely in his brain? Or do you locate it in a kind of cultural confusion surrounding him? Because there's definitely some confusion because, I mean, his son tweeted out, you know, that's the way we do it. You know, just like nothing but pride and his dad.

his son tweeted out, you know, that's the way we do it. I know. Nothing but pride in his dad. So there's a part of the culture that just didn't get how wrong the behavior was and is. And that's a kind of delusion that if you share it, it's just morally confusing. The guy was just studying. Yeah. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation,

you'll need to subscribe at SamHarris.org. Once you do, you'll get access to all full-length episodes of the Making Sense podcast, along with other subscriber-only content, including bonus episodes, NAMAs, and the conversations I've been having on the Waking Up app. The Making Sense podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support. And you can subscribe now at SamHarris.org.