Making Sense with Sam Harris - #482 — More From Sam: The Iran Deal, College in the AI Age, Mamdani's DSA, and More

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron talk about current events. They discuss topics from Making Sense Community, including one-world government, the value of a degree as AI reshapes careers, and factory farming ethics, along with Mamdani's DSA-aligned candidates, Trump's humiliating capitulation in the Iran deal, the Tulsi Gabbard guru story, 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.  

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please consider subscribing today. Welcome back to another episode of more from Sam. Hello, Sam. Hey, good to see you. Good to see you as well. This time we're not taking you. taping live in front of subscribers. I'm traveling and didn't want the stress of whether the internet would hold. So if you're hearing this, obviously it did. Making Sense Community now has over 26,000 people in it,

and it's humming along nicely. I really enjoyed many of the exchanges with so many thoughtful people there. Everyone has been behaving, and I think it's because they too wanted to see this succeed, and you've been getting some good feedback and pushback in there. It's definitely not been an echo chamber. No, no worries of that. No. And you've, You've been in there quite a bit yourself. It's almost like an Easter egg where I'm reading a thread and then I see a comment from you. We don't have a follow feature and I think that works out better because we didn't want to build this community to be dependent on you and it certainly hasn't been. So for today's episode, I'm going to try something a little different. Rather than running down a bunch of topics related to the news cycle, I'm going to grab a sampling from the posts in our community and get you to comment on them here. We'll also get your reactions to the Iran deal, whatever's happening over there and to whatever current events are necessary. So for those of you are looking for that, don't worry. And just a quick note before we get going, if you want to join community or become a subscriber to the podcast, you can find subscription options by going to samharis.org

slash subscribe. Okay, let's get started. One world government is global political unification inevitable and would it be good? Should nation states eventually operate the way U.S. states do under a federal umbrella. Yeah, actually, this is not something I've thought about recently, but now that you mention it, this is probably something I've changed my mind about. I think in my first book, The End of Faith, I wrote somewhere, probably in an end note,

that it was just obvious that the end game for civilization is some version of one-world government. What we want, in the end, if things work out, is for the prospect of war between China and the U.S., to be just as ridiculous and therefore unthinkable, as the prospect of war is now between, you know, Vermont and Massachusetts, right? It's just not going to happen. Nobody's worried about it. And it's, that's the case because they're unified under a single government that has a monopoly on, on the use of force.

So something like that for the entire world must be where we're headed unless we're going to keep killing one another. I don't think I believe that now. Or if I do believe it, I think that goal is far enough away and quixotic enough that we really can't argue for it in the current environment. The idea that, you know, in our case, the United States could ever be truly subordinate to the political whims of Europe or, you know, to say nothing of going further afield and, you know, greater cultural distance from us, I just, you know, it's, our own society is so dysfunctional politically at this point that the idea of a global version of this just seems genuinely unthinkable to me.

You don't think some super AGI of some kind would be able to solve that for us, or you're saying maybe that? Well, I could imagine the dystopian version of this. I mean, you know, one world totalitarianism, like tech enabled, I could well imagine that being in our future. But in terms of a desirable future where we realize that we have converted. so fully on our cultural priorities that we're just going to un-Brexit the whole world because it's just obviously good and we really trust our brothers and sisters over there in Belgium

and Congo and everywhere else. I mean, it's just, it's not going to happen in the lifetime of our children or their children or any of their robots. I just don't see it. Really, you just, you really think there's just no version where AI comes up with like all the best answers. And we've all just gathered around and said, oh my God, this is just, it's not comparable.

Well, you can't, if you were going to put it all on AI, then successful, perfect superintelligence, then I really don't know what the world looks like. I mean,

and the whole thing perhaps becomes a self-driving car and we forgot we ever wanted a steering wheel. But the dystopian versions of something like that are, I think, so much more numerous and easier to think about that. I just don't see us overcoming our political fragmentation to a degree that makes even the aspiration for one world government

something that you can talk about with a straight face. Okay, next topic. Are you a hard materialist, or do you leave room for genuinely unexplained phenomena? How do you handle people you trust who report experiences science can't account for? Well, those aren't mutually exclusive. You could be a hard materialist and freely acknowledge that their unexplained phenomena, right? You just think that the explanation, should we find it, will resolve itself within the materialist frame, right? So it's just not, I don't think there's anyone who's denying that their unexplained phenomenon. I'm not a hard, I mean, I wouldn't consider, I'm certainly open-minded with respect to some other ontology other than materialism.

Are you, more commonly called physicalism at this moment to remind people, you know, if you're a physicalist, you think that we live in a physical universe and that everything includes, minds and their subjective experiences are by some mechanism we don't currently understand emerging properties of all of those physical forces and structures that really exist out there in the world. I think it's totally plausible that physicalism as currently thought about can't explain consciousness in particular and that consciousness either is just something we can't understand in terms of normal physical reductionism or it requires some other discussion about what is what is real and maybe everything that we're considering physical has some mental

properties or some interior dimension on some level but if it is just in fact the case that there's really just a universe of quote physical you know and insent fields and forces and consciousness emerges out of some combination of blind unconscious events, information processing or otherwise, that may in fact be true. That's not an explanation that is ever going to be intelligible to anyone. So I think the hard problem of consciousness is very real intellectually. And I don't know what the answer is to it.

So I don't know. I can't say I'm a quote a hard materialist. I simply don't know how consciousness emerges out of the physics effects. All right. way out over my skis, so we're moving on. Does philosophy deserve its prestige, or is it mostly sophisticated opinion-making? Where's the line between genuine intellectual rigor and pseudoscientific hand-waving dressed up in academic jargon? I feel like that question has it backwards. I don't think philosophy has much prestige in, neither in science nor in popular culture, does certainly a degree

in philosophy give you much gravitation? right? That's not, when on the list of, on the short list of useless degrees or degrees that are imagined to be useless by entrepreneurs and academics and, you know, just toss one out there. Philosophy is usually on the tip of everybody's tongue.

I mean, they just, like, you're going to get a degree in gender studies or, you know, I don't know, dance or philosophy. Basket weaving.

Yeah. So as to be unemployable. I think it's actually one of the best degrees. and selects for some of the best people in a university campus. And I think that's been true for a very long time. But increasingly, I think it's one of the best degrees if you want to be a generalist who can just think and clearly and write clearly and speak clearly.

I just think it's good training for all of that. Under the shadow of AI, I think it only becomes a better degree rather than worse. I think it becomes more practical. I mean, we've talked about this. I just think we're going to want the human curation of digital products, ultimately, more and more. If anyone's going to be left standing, it's going to be the massage therapist and the people with good taste intellectually who can kind of point in the right direction toward the robots that make more sense rather than less sense. I mean, I've always felt it was a good degree to get and prepared you for anything else that you might want to do pretty well, even if you're going to go into science.

because when you go into science at the graduate level, you basically have to relearn everything anyway and you take all the same basic courses to get started. So, yeah, I don't think it has much gravitas. I think it should have more. It's true that it depends what philosophy you focused on. I think there are corners of philosophy that are just word salad or mostly word salad.

And yeah, those are, I think, rightly denigrated. But, yeah, I've averted my eyes from most of that stuff. All right, thanks for that. Why are we here? Can you live a genuinely examine life without arriving at a satisfying answer to that question? Or is the asking itself the point? Or is neither the- I think it's the wrong question.

I don't think you can extract much of value out of that question. It's certainly not the question that science asks. I mean, it's much more of a how question. How are we here? How did this happen? That's a scientific question. And the why question attributes a or seeks to attribute a reason behind all of this and perhaps an intention. I mean, it's a very theistic framing of the nature of the problem.

What about the what? What is the meaning of life? Well, again, that just sort of smuggles in the same question under what. There need not be a meaning to life. It's just, why should there be? Without people, you would never be tempted to ask that question. It's like, you know, let's say people become extinct. You know, there's just a world filled with, with non-human animals.

You know, look at that creation. Look at the wolves and the owls and the cockroaches. You would never be tempted to wonder, well, what is the, what's the meaning of this? You know, why did this happen? It's no less interesting to consider how it happened and what's actually happening. But purpose, that's just, it's a very, anthropomorphic lens to look at all of this through. There's just the fact that the cosmos exists and you are part of it, right?

And the, like, why ask why in the face of that mystery? The mystery isn't resolved. I mean, just imagine the answer that, if you could believe it, if an answer were given to you, would it really resolve that mystery? You know, if a voice boomed out of the heaven saying, oh, why because I wanted to or why because this is what I thought was beautiful? Does that really answer anything? It certainly just throws up more questions than you want to ask that maniac in the sky,

you know, what about smallpox? It can't possibly satisfy that it's not going to scratch the itch that anyone thinks it's going to scratch. So what is the right question to ask or is there just no question to ask? Yeah, I think that I think this questioning mode, so the emotional question, you know, the feeling that there's a problem here emotionally that has to be solved, you know, on the other side of which your happiness and tranquility will be found, that's an illusion and that's that's the cramp introduced by the question itself right i mean that that's a failure for of your attention to actually contact the mode of feeling good enough in the present

moment right like you're distracted enough you're you don't recognize thoughts as thoughts you don't recognize any space around thoughts you don't know how to meditate you don't know what your mind is really you know you're just being used by it uh in each moment you know you're you're effectively asleep and dreaming and now you're dreaming that you're sitting in a classroom wondering, you know, what's the point of it all? It's not the place from which you're, you're going to answer this question, and it's not the place where you could receive an answer that would be satisfying. I mean, your problem is you just don't feel as good as you might feel if you paid closer attention to what is like to be you in each moment, right? If you broke the spell of your

identification with thought, it can actually rest, right? And, and you glimpse that kind of experience, you know, when you, you know, are really working out hard or, you know, thrown into the, in some, you know, collision with the beauty of nature or you're having sex or you're, you know, appreciating art or something has moved you out of yourself and, or you've taken the right drugs, right? Something has placed you in a, quote, non-ordinary state of consciousness or a peak experience. And then you just, you've forgotten, you've certainly forgotten this question. you're not asking any questions. You're just, you know, if the mind is going to come online again at that moment,

it's going to, you'll be asking questions like, well, why can't I feel like this more of the time, or how do I maintain this experience? Or maybe, you know, is it possible to move here where I can have this beautiful, beautiful view of the ocean? Or like the thing you think that has moved you into that profound embrace of the present moment, you think it's exogenousous to yourself, right? again, it's the landscape or it's the relationship or it's the, you know, whatever it is,

the fun you're having in the company of friends, it's, you're going to attribute that as its cause, and then you'll be left thinking, how can I get more of that? And again, that's a failure to understand the intentional basis of these changes and experience. So how do you answer this question if your seven-year-old nephew says, Uncle Sam, why are we here? What is the purpose of all of this? then I would say, I don't know, but the mystery isn't the problem. And the mystery can be the source of a very fun exploration of the world, right?

That's everything, you know, whether you're going to explore the mountains or you're going to explore a jungle or you're going to explore science. Or, I mean, it's just your curiosity is not something you're ever going to get rid of. Right. So curiosity is not a problem. All right. In a recent episode of Making Sense, Noah Smith says, fixing the debt means, cutting health care for the poor while the wealthy give up a vacation or two. Is that the,

we're all in this together, or is it obscene? And is this exact frustration what's actually driving the populist wave? I guess I don't understand the connection here. We think the populace wave might, you're asking whether wealth inequality is driving. Well, he's saying in the recent episode, I believe the question is, is that when Noah was talking about saying, look, we're all going to have to be in this together. The poor are going to have, you know, not the poor. but the middle class are going to have to handle this, and the wealthy are going to have to give up a vacation or two. And he's, I think he's, the question is, is that really what it means we're all in this together, that the wealthy are going to have to give up a vacation or two? And that's,

I forgot he said that. I mean, I would quibble with the definitions of the cohorts here. I mean, the wealthy, when you're talking about the wealthy, you're talking about wealth, the people who are not going to give up anything, right? No matter how much we tax them, they're not going to have to give up a vacation or two. I would draw the line at wealth, where, you're not, there's not a conceivable change in your style of living that could matter. I mean, that most of your money is always just going to be numbers on a spreadsheet. It's never going to be implicated in how you spend your money, right? That's the true, those are the truly wealthy people in our society.

The question, I think, is directly toward those people. Why can't those people bear more of the burden? I think what Noel was saying, though, is that even if you managed to tax those people, quite onerously, it's still not enough money, right? We, like, the middle class is going to have to pay more in taxes too, right? And the almost wealthy, right? The people who will feel it. There's just not enough, I mean, it's just that that's not, you're not going to tax our way

successfully out of a $40 trillion hole. And I think he was saying as many people have that really, it's going to require growth and inflation to get us out as well, right? It's just not, you can't redistribute your way out of it. But there's going to be, have to be a fair amount of, of redistribution too. A 26-year-old is about to start medical school and wondering if it's a mistake. In eight years, will there still be a meaningful role for human physicians?

Or is this the wrong career bet at the worst possible moment? It seems as good a bet as any, really. I mean, if you're going to worry that being a doctor is a dead end now, I think almost almost everything else is on that list at the same level. It's just as likely that there will be no lawyers and there'll be no, you know, even, you know, CEOs of companies, right? It's like, do you want to found a company? Well, what's to say that two years from now, that company won't even be more successful

if a robot were running it, right? So it's not, I think, I don't think you can close the door on most professions like that at this point. It's just, it's going to be some way of being a doctor and using all the AI tools. And if there's not, there's going to be some role for a person. who almost became a doctor to use those, you know, use these tools better than most other people. I mean, this guy has to be some human layer to this. Otherwise, we're going to have to solve everybody's problem all at once by just spreading, spreading the trillions of dollars around that the robots have produced for us. So it's, yeah, I mean, I can't say that you should be

pessimistic about whether being a doctor is even going to be a thing in a few short years. because if that happens, basically everything is gone, I would say. Well, but if the doctors are gone, that's probably, I mean, there's an upside to that or a silver lining as well. That would mean that. Yeah. Well, but again, then we have to confront this at every level of employment, right? It's just, again, there'll be a few things that are probably more impervious than being

a doctor. Again, things like being a massage therapist or, you know, something where you could just, there's this categorical difference between whether there's a human doing it or a robot doing it and it's you could imagine a preference for humans. But I mean, now that, I mean, maybe even that is not real, that preference. I can just imagine where people would want the, the analog version still, and they'd want their doctor to show up with the black bag coming over like they used to many years ago. All right. With AI reshaping every career path, this is a related question. Is a six-figure degree still a reasonable bet? I hope so. I mean, just culturally, it seems like we want, we want our

kids to still have that experience. There's something great about the college experience because it gives you four years to be a student and to just be interested in anything that you find interesting and to be surrounded by people doing the same thing. It's not that there's no pressure, but it's a very specific type of pressure. It's not the pressure to make your life work out in the world. It's not the pressure to find a career immediately. It's a very useful crucible and it's over far too fast for most kids, I think. And it's, um, I mean, just culturally, I think it's valuable. I mean, there are other things that are valuable that, you know, have an experience. Like, you know, being in the military, I'm sure is valuable. And this is, is,

is, you know, imparts its own lessons for people. And I think probably having mandatory public service that we, we've never had in my lifetime, which you can certainly make the case, that that would be a good thing for our society. I mean, over, as a way of overcoming, hyper-partitorship and building culture, you know, intelligently and intentionally. But I think college is very useful for some people. You can certainly make the case that we have a lot of miseducated people out there now starting to run our institutions, right? I'm sure we'll get into the Zoran Mamdani of it all.

But, I mean, the people who are finding the Democratic Socialists of America to be credible voices for the future of democratic politics. I mean, all of that's frankly terrifying, and it is, you know, perfectly correlated with being a miseducated dummy coming out of a school like Columbia, right? So it's like it's possible for the whole college experience to sum to something that's truly embarrassing intellectually and morally. But in the general case, I just don't think that's, that's the outcome and it shouldn't be. and we can certainly guard against it.

And I think it's, if not college, I do think we want a stage in life that's kind of a monastic immersion in the good parts of culture for people. I think that's good. So I wasn't planning to bring up Mondani, but do you want to get into that now? Members can hear the full conversation

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